Slime
Rancher 2

Slime Rancher 2 (2022) is a farming simulation game where rather than chickens, sheep or cows, you farm slimes. You explore the oceanic world to find slimes to use on your farm to generate income and steadily upgrade your land. It stands out for whimsical open-world farming and exploration, but also requires nuanced slime breeding and selling to make a surprisingly deep experience.

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Play involves exploring a new open-world setting that's different from the first game. It offers more verticality and secret areas, inspired by oversized ocean shallows and coral. As you explore, you find slime species with new characteristics that are unique to this sequel. You capture them to bring them back to your base and farm. Slimes can be crossbred and changed by feeding them different items and the plorts produced by other species. If a slime eats more than two different plorts, it becomes an aggressive malevolent black slime called a Tarr, which causes havoc and must be washed away with precious water.

The many different kinds of slime you can farm lead to a complex web of collecting, feeding and breeding. This is extended by the scarcity of a particular slime determining its plort's market price, a small touch that adds a layer of realism to the otherwise unreal experience. the money you gain from selling plorts can be used to upgrade your farm and your traversal abilities, letting you explore further and gather even more slimes.

The result is a game that combines exploration and traversal with lighthearted farming, creating a laidback experience that's silly fun. However, to do really well still requires strategy and careful collecting, breeding, and selling, to make the most out of what you have.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Slime Rancher 2 9 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 8 months ago.