Slime Rancher was an indie hit that I know was good but for some reason never bothered to pick up. Even while it was on Game Pass. But after this one tweetI decided that, you know what, let’s see what it’s all about and play the sequel, Slime Rancher 2, currently available in Early Access on PC (Steam, Microsoft Store) and Xbox consoles, as well as on Game Pass.
I get it now.
Slime Rancher 2 is a sublimely fun experience even in its current state. I am now charmed by this series. But after watching the sequel and comparing it to the first game, veteran veterans will find that Slime Rancher 2 really lives up to that Early Access moniker.
In Slime Rancher 2, slime wrangler Beatrix LeBeau has completed her adventures in the Far, Far, Range and has now moved to a brand new location: Rainbow Island. There is a mystery to uncover here, but most importantly, the Conservatory is well equipped to start a new slime farm. And there’s a lot of slime floating around.
The Slime Rancher games are one of many, many games in the now overcrowded farming game genre. So as you can expect, you do indeed have to take care of a farm. And not just “replace slime like animals”, you also get the urge to tend to chickens, which treat some slime as a food source, in addition to fruits and vegetables. You know, real farming.
The main gameplay loop initially resembles a farming game. Suck up some slime with your vacuum pack, take them back to the farm, set up a bead, feed them, watch them spit out splorts, collect those splorts and sell it to the splort market. Indeed you do, and over time you will slowly discover some tricks and tricks that will test you on how to manage your slime farm.
But actually I’m arguing that the real core of the Slime Rancher games is what you do outside the ranch.
In Slime Rancher 2 you are now in the lush lands of Rainbow Island, filled with a population of slime new and old and no towns or other inhabitants here.
It’s an open world, but not on an open world scale. The design of the environment is complicated enough that if you talk to someone about how to get to a location, you can describe it in the details (go left, through the statues, follow the path up, etc.) instead of only a cardinal direction or a waypoint on the map. It’s also full of vertical layers, hidden paths, and shortcuts, as well as secret collectibles to find.
I don’t play enough of these kinds of games, but I compare the adventure as attractive as Journey To The Savage Planet, but Slime Rancher 2 is of course healthier.
Exploration here is immensely satisfying, especially when you get the upgrades that expand your first-person platforming capabilities. If you have a curious mind and love to poke and poke around the world to see what’s going to happen, Rainbow Island in Slime Rancher 2 will so often tickle you with the joy of discovery.
As healthy as the game is, you will be presented with threats by default. First, if you’re exploring the world and you stumble upon feral slime that will attack you at the sight unless you feed them something to get them in a good mood again. Or run away. Or be a ruthless heartless person and throw them off a cliff.
The other challenge comes from the Tarr. You see, one slime can eat another slime’s spit (eww) to become a largo slime – a combination of two slimes. Not only are they embossing themselves, but they now share the properties of two types of slime: their original property and the property of the splort they just ate. If you found a Tabby slime (cat ear slime) and the new cotton slime (rabbit ear slime), the largo slime will now eat meat and vegetables. And when they spit out their splatters, they produce both Tabby and Cotton splorts. It is essentially a cross of slime.
But what if the largo slime eats yet another splutter? Well, then you cross the line and they turn into Tarr instead. These prismatic black balls of death will continue to gobble up other slime to turn them into Tarrs, killing the entire population of slime if left unchecked.
While exploring the world you will easily come across patches of land where two different slimes roam around doing slimy things, stacking each other up, eating whatever they find and being merry. And when a third type of mucus comes into the picture, it can deteriorate in the blink of an eye. Be careful when exploring at night.
Don’t worry, the slimes will come back over time, but that means the cycle continues.
The Tarr is a great mechanic that basically serves as a way to keep the slime population in check. It’s dark, but you can’t have a ridiculous amount of slime in one place. That’s too much cuteness for one person to handle, and for one computer or console to handle too, imagine the framerate drops. A Tarr breakout can also happen at the ranch, a challenge to ensure you don’t splatter for a loose largo slime that you love to gobble up.
That said, Slime Rancher 2 can be a healthy, pacifist game, despite spending the time in first person aiming the suction cannon as if it were a pistol. You can disable feral slimes and Tarr that are enabled by default.
(On that note, shout out to Monomi Park for making a game about slime that is all cute and healthy. The thing about that tweet that got me playing is that in Bahasa Malaysia, the word that translates to slime in that language is still strongly associated with icky, gooey, gross and possibly lewd connotations. And this game avoids all of that. The word “suck” never appeared and was replaced by “vac”, short for vacuuming, and I’m convinced that this is intentional. Well played.)
After more than 10 hours, I feel like I’ve seen everything currently on offer in Slime Rancher 2 at the Early Access period launch. It’s a fun adventure game first, a farming game second, in my experience.
Running around the world to collect resources to upgrade the farm was where most of my time was spent, rather than taking care of the farm so much. But things may change as more content is added, requiring you to have a decent farming operation to get enough splorts for the upgrades. And I’m looking forward to that.
If you haven’t tried Slime Rancher yet, jump right into Slime Rancher 2. The story that ties into the previous game is there, but you won’t feel completely left out by not playing the first game. And you’ll probably enjoy it more by not being able to compare this to the first game.
Veterans of the first game might like the new setting, but as far as I know all the core mechanics are here, but no game-changing or new systems have been introduced yet. So it’s like jumping into The Sims 4 base at the launch of The Sims 3 with all the DLCs.
Any other major changes for Slime Rancher 2 that guarantee 2 in the name other than the setting change are still not seen here. But as the beginning of an Early Access game, it’s polished, playable and already a sublimely fun experience.
Played on PC. Early Access impressions build on the launch. Access to the game through the reviewer’s personal PC Game Pass subscription.
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