After six years of waiting, development studio Monomi Park has finally released a sequel to “Slime Rancher“. Play as Beatrix LeBeau, a café owner from Earth, as she arrives on the colorful alien paradise known as Rainbow Island. 

To challenge players with new dangers, a crafting area for gadgets called the Laboratory gives access to advanced technology just under a player’s house. Teleporters, ranch decorations, and medical stations are a few of the gadgets to help players advance through the game. Returning as a staple of “Slime Rancher,” the “Vac Tank” allows players to vacuum slimes and shoot them back out. The tank is a perfect tool for managing corrals and farms, essential for the main objective of the game.

The controls are simple to master, mainly relying on the “WASD” keys and both sides of the mouse, including the first four number keys for the Vac Tank storage.

As a slime rancher, the player’s duty is to explore, capture and farm slime “plorts.” In-game currency is earned through selling plorts, the diamond-shaped waste most slimes emit after being fed. Each type of plort in the Plort Market has a different value that changes depending on how many are sold in a day.

At first, I struggled with the market system. Unsold plorts overflowed my silos due to the slow moving prices. To combat this, I halved the slimes in my corrals to prevent more plorts, which didn’t help the price situation too much either.

A blessing and curse to farms are largos: the product of mixing two slimes together. They jump higher, but can’t fit inside the Vac Tank. They can produce two types of plorts. But beware: a mixture of three different slimes will form a Tarr, the multiplying goop of black that consumes anything and everything, enough to decimate an entire ranch. When owning largos, it’s best to upgrade the corral to have high walls and an air net, depending on the amount of slimes.

For older players, the game may be a disappointment. “Slime Rancher 2” is painfully similar to its counterpart, with little mechanical or stylistic changes. Though it recreates the excitement I felt from opening “Slime Rancher” for the first time, that feeling faded as I continued to play.

Like its predecessor, gameplay isn’t rushed. Instead, it encourages players to take their time while expanding their ranch or completing puzzles in the wild. This benefits the visual side, letting players admire the design of the world as they slowly discover it. Moreover, the graphics are crisp and smooth while still maintaining the signature style of Slime Rancher, making any screenshot of the game “thumbnail worthy.”

As for the story aspect, the unnatural rainbow color, ancient ruins and strange land formations all add into the lore. Furthermore, each slime and material in-game has a detailed description of its relation to the current planet and Earth, adding a layer of depth to the story.

Despite its cuddly surface, there is an unsettling history behind the origins of the island. I feel it’s better to experience the story from inside the game itself, each piece of the puzzle connecting as the true story unfolds.

Because of its current status in Early Access, there is a large gap in content, which may be a disappointment to fast-paced players. Considering these problems, there is no doubt “Slime Rancher 2” will evolve to surpass its likeness to the first game and become something impressive.