Released in March 2021 for Nintendo Switch and only arriving in January 2023 for other consoles, Monster Hunter Rise is a more pared-down experience compared to World and Wilds. However, it offers the new Wirebug for getting around (and unleashing new skills), and players can also mount Palamutes to explore maps. There’s also the Rampage, a tower defense-style mission type.

Slime Rancher 2 was released last year after an extensive time in early access and serves as the follow-up to Monomi Park’s beloved farming title. Players venture to a new planet to raise slimes, which have new variants, and even uncover various new mysteries.

As for PGA Tour 2K25, it’s the latest title in 2K’s series developed by HB Studios, and offers several Championships, a new MyCareer mode, and more. Despite a solid launch, it received several egregious microtransactions shortly after, so be warned. Finally, there’s The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road, which includes the 2024 expansion and everything else before, making it a decent entry point into the MMO.

All of the above titles are available from March 3rd to April 6th. Check out February’s offerings here and redeem them while you can.

Ghost of Yōtei

Everything about Sucker Punch’s sequel is a step up from Ghost of Tsushima. The exploration feels more organic as Ezo is brimming with interesting stories, Mythic Tales, and activities (with far fewer restrictions on where to go). Combat is more visceral than ever, with the different weapons mixing up the formula in fun ways. All in all, a fantastic sequel and a stellar open-world game in its own right, which brings us to…

]]> 629864 https://gamingbolt.com/slime-rancher-2-review-iteration-and-evolution Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:17:42 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=628846 When the original Slime Rancher was first released all the way back in 2017, it was praised for how well it offers players a sense of relaxation while still being out on an adventure. 2022 then saw the Early Access release of Slime Rancher 2, and now, after three years’ worth of updates, it is finally officially out with a 1.0 release. Slime Rancher 2 isn’t a radical departure from its predecessor. Rather, it acts as more of a refinement on core ideas that were first introduced in the original game. And thanks to years of iteration and updates following community feedback, Slime Rancher 2 has been deemed as good enough to be officially released.

"With the barest of narratives you can possibly get, you’re then thrown into the Slime Conservatory, which serves as your new base of operations, and are given a single task: explore the island."

Much like its predecessor, and even other titles that are often considered to fall under the “cosy game” umbrella, Slime Rancher 2 doesn’t really have much of a story. Sure, there are a couple of images with text boxes explaining why protagonist Beatrix LeBeau finds herself on an entirely new location (Rainbow Island), full of all sorts of new slimes to ranch, and even why she no longer has the gear she had accumulated over the course of the previous game. However, that’s about as far as the story goes. After this, the narrative essentially takes a back seat, focusing on making sure that you, as the player, are as comfortable as you can be for the cosy and adorable adventure.

With the barest of narratives you can possibly get, you’re then thrown into the Slime Conservatory, which serves as your new base of operations, and are given a single task: explore the island. Of course, that’s not to say that there isn’t much in the way of gameplay here. Slime Rancher 2 revolves around you running around the island and collecting slimes and resources with your vacuum gun, called the vacpack. Storing the slime requires you to build up special pens, however, and each type of slime has its own different requirements for its survival. Phosphor Slimes, for example, are sensitive to sunlight, and need their pens to have special upgrades that dim the light for them, along with a roof to ensure that they don’t just fly off into the wilds.

"Different kinds of slimes can create varying types of Plorps."

You also have to keep your slimes fed. To start out with, you’ll head out into the island to scavenge various fruits, vegetables, and even meat in the form of chickens. These can then be shot at your pens to feed your slimes. Now, slimes can’t really die, and there isn’t much in the way of “satisfaction” mechanics that could potentially cause an uprising by agitated slimes in your pens. Rather, you want to feed your slimes as much and as often as you possibly can to ensure the continuous production of an item called a Plorp. Different kinds of slimes can create varying types of Plorps. Pink Slimes, for example, can only create the Pink Plorps, while Phosphor or Cotton Plorps need their own distinct kinds of Slime.

These Plorps can then be sold at a machine for money, with each Plorp having its own distinct value. Pink Plorps, for example, fetch the lowest price, and the price goes up alongside the rarity and exoticness of the Plorp you sell. The money can then be spent on creating new structures, buying blueprints, and even upgrades to your existing ones. Along with new pens and chicken coops to start out with, you can also spend money on building up gardens, which in turn allow you to plant a specific type of fruit or vegetable, which can subsequently be fed to your slimes.

Along with building up your home base, the money you make from selling Plorps is also used as a way to gate off parts of Rainbow Island. Each new part you might want to explore needs a hefty number of coins. In this way, you’re only really encouraged to go into these new areas once you are certain that you can handle the challenges that they might present. These challenges can range from tricky platforming, to even hostile flora and fauna, which includes slimes.

"Generally speaking, Slime Rancher 2 feels the most hectic right as you start out."

Making money isn’t the only thing Plorps are good for, however. They are also often used as crafting materials for the various upgrades you can make to your own character. These upgrades tend to be quite important, especially in the earlier parts of the game, since they open up the ability for you to extract various resources out in the world. Even smaller upgrades like giving you one more slot for a unique item to carry, or raising the maximum number of slimes you can carry with you in a single stack, tend to feel quite meaningful. However, the price of getting these upgrades often tends to feel quite hopeless, especially since you’ll have your hands full in trying to manage your unruly slimes that love jumping all over the place.

Generally speaking, Slime Rancher 2 feels the most hectic right as you start out. The tutorial is rather free form, and you’re encouraged to just roam around and push buttons to figure out what you should be doing. Once you’ve got a couple of pens with Pink and Cotton Slimes in the beginning, you’ll also very quickly discover hybrid slimes, which in this case comes about from a Pink and Cotton Slime merging together into one massive Pink Slime with bunny ears and the ability to leap incredibly high. These larger slimes tend to provide a great combination of Plorps to sell when they’re fed, which means that you’ll be tempted to build a special pen for them. However, because they can jump quite high, you’ll also want to save up for high walls to make sure that they’re not just running amok in your base.

These low-stakes problems that need the player to constantly explore and experiment with various gameplay mechanics and upgrades end up forming the foundations that make Slime Rancher 2 tick. You are not going to be getting into epic fights with huge bosses in this game. Rather, you’re going to spend your time relaxing, looking at the adorably goofy slimes bouncing around your various pens, and exploring when you think you really need to, all the time fixing smaller problems that might pop up here and there.

"Of course, the generally-relaxing vibe is also helped a great deal by the excellent visuals and audio."

For players that might be looking for more of a challenge, however, Slime Rancher 2 does offer up some unique puzzle solving and navigational challenges that need you to not only explore the world to find them, but to also be familiar with the properties of the different kinds of slimes in the surrounding area. These challenges tend to be another great way to collect Plorps, rare slimes, and even some blueprints for upgrades or new structures.

Of course, the generally-relaxing vibe is also helped a great deal by the excellent visuals and audio. As its name might imply, Rainbow Island is an incredibly colourful location, and each type of slime feels quite distinct thanks not only to their colours or other features, but also smaller touches, like their facial expressions. The soundtrack is basically composed of nothing but relaxing music coupled with ambient sounds like the rains. Sound design is generally pretty great too; each slime can be distinguished thanks to the kinds of sounds they make, and even your vacpack has a satisfying “thunk” when you shoot a slime out from your inventory and into the pen.

On the performance side of things, Slime Rancher 2 ran quite well, offering a smooth frame rate of between 120 and 140 on my PC—an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, 32 GB of DDR5-6000 RAM, and an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU. It is worth noting that you might face some initial hitches early on, likely due to the game loading in all the assets it needs, but these issues get ironed out over the first couple of minutes of your play time.

"It ultimately still ends up feeling like a great, relaxing and whimsical way to spend a few hours."

Slime Rancher 2 feels like an excellent follow-up to its predecessor in all the right ways. Not only does it provide plenty of hours worth of relaxing exploration-centric gameplay, there are also plenty of new things to discover, like new kinds of slimes, and how they can interact with each other. While the gameplay might feel a bit more hectic when you first start out, it ultimately still ends up feeling like a great, relaxing and whimsical way to spend a few hours.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Monomi Park confirms that all updates that have released for the game up to this point will be included in its PS5 version. Pre-orders are open on PS5 now, and those who pre-order the game will be able to access the game a few days ahead of launch and play it starting June 7th at 10AM PDT.

When Slime Rancher 2 released in early access in September 2022, Monomi Park announced that it had sold over 100,000 units in its less than 6 hours. Later in the month, it was revealed that the game had crossed 300,000 units sold.

Slime Rancher 2 will releease for PS5 on June 11.

Taking recently to Twitter, game director and Monomi Park co-founder and CEO Nick Popovich revealed that Slime Rancher 2 has now sold over 300,000 copies across all platforms since launch. The first person sandbox life sim title currently also holds a 95% positive user rating on Steam, based on over 6,000 user reviews.

Interestingly, Popovich also points out that Slime Rancher 2 – which has clearly seen instant commercial and critical success – was developed with “zero” crunch, with Monomi Park also “offering top tier benefits and unlimited PTO” to employees- which is yet another encouraging sign of the industry’s changing workplace practices.

Slime Rancher 2 is available in early access on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. It is also available via Game Pass.

Wow! In just a few days Slime Rancher 2 has sold more than 300k copies, and reached #1 on Steam, w/a 95% positive score across over 6k reviews!

Most importantly, this was all achieved with ZERO crunch, while offering top tier benefits and unlimited PTO to our team ❤️

Thank you! pic.twitter.com/PlYK78IzK5

— Nick Popovich @ GDC (@NickPopovich) September 26, 2022

“No idea where this crazy train is headed but so grateful to have a chance to ride it. Thank you all so very much.” It’s probably not surprising, considering the original game sold over five million copies by January 2022. But for an early access title that will spend the next 18 months, potentially longer, in development, it’s a pretty good start.

Slime Rancher 2 is available for PC via Steam Early Access and Epic Games Store, along with Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass via Xbox Game Preview. Protagonist Beatrix LeBeau journeys to a new location, Rainbow Island, which is full of returning and brand new slimes, along with a conservatory and old ruins. Players will once again build facilities, earn Plorts and sell them for Newbucks, and attempt to unravel the mysteries of Rainbow Island.

Stay tuned for further details on the sequel in the coming months.

https://twitter.com/NickPopovich/status/1573097739507875843

Beatrix LeBeau returns, venturing to Rainbow Island to continue farming slimes. In addition to strange technology and mysterious resources, there are also new slimes like the Angler Slime and Cotton Slime to collect. By selling Slime Plorts for Newbucks, one can upgrade their tools, expand the island’s Conservatory and perhaps solve its various mysteries.

Slime Rancher 2 will remain in early access for “at least 18 months, potentially longer.” The full release will have more slimes, locations, gadgets and resources in addition to completing the story. However, the current version still offers plenty to explore and slimes to collect while introducing players to the story. Saves also carry over between updates, allowing one to jump in and out through the development process.

The biggest game of the bunch is Arkane Studios’ first person shooter Deathloop, which launches for Xbox now that its PlayStation exclusivity deal is over. The game is available for Game Pass today on PC, console, and cloud. Also available today is Hardspace: Shipbreaker for cloud and Xbox Series X/S.

September 22 will bring another three games to the service, with Slime Rancher 2 launching in early access for cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X/S, alongside SpiderHeck (for console and PC) and Beacon Pines (for cloud, console, and PC).

September 27 will see the long-awaited 1.0 launch for Obsidian Entertainment’s Grounded for cloud, console, and PC, as well as Moonscars for the same platforms. On September 29, another major survival game will become available for Game Pass on PC with Valheim, while Let’s Build a Zoo will join the service’s catalog on cloud, console, and PC.

Finally, on September 30, PAW Patrol Grand Prix will become available for cloud, console, and PC.

You can check out the full list of games added to Game Pass as part of the first wave for September 2022 through here.

The Last of Us Part I

Naughty Dog’s 2013 classic, which mixes cinematic story-telling with action-adventure and survival elements, remains an unforgettable experience. On September 2nd, fans can relive that experience on PS5 (for a $70 price tag, of course) with The Last of Us Part 1. Built from the ground up for the console, it offers more detailed environments, improved animations, shorter loading times, DualSense support, and a wide range of accessibility options.

AI improvements, a revamped crafting bench, and much more also await. Though multiplayer isn’t included, it’s still worth looking into for the sheer visual splendor.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero

Twelve years after its original release on PlayStation Portable, Falcom’s The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is finally being localized to English and released worldwide. Set months after the end of Trails in the Sky the 3rd, the story moves to Crossbell, a city-state of advanced technology and economic wealth. Crime and conspiracies run rampant, which results in the formation of the Special Support Section led by Lloyd Bannings.

Releasing on September 27th for PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch, the English version includes High-Speed and Skip Modes along with improvements to texture quality, bug fixes, and much more.

NBA 2K23

Dread it, run from it – NBA 2K arrives all the same. The year’s release features the usual ensemble of MyCareer (with The City and The Cruise returning for current and previous gen platforms), MyTeam, MyGM and MyLeague modes featuring both NBA and WNBA teams. However, significant revamps have been made to the gameplay, from new Pro Stick combos and Adrenaline Boosts to new Shot Meters and Shooting Attributes.

Even the Badge System and Player Builder have been improved, providing more freedom in customization. If that weren’t enough, The Jordan Challenges from NBA 2K11 return with the original 10 rebuilt and five new challenges added. NBA 2K23 is out on September 9th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Hopefully, it amounts to more than another yearly microtransaction fest.

Splatoon 3

Splatoon 3 will feel very familiar to fans of the previous two games, which is a good thing, but there are plenty of new features. Splatsville is the new hub with shops like Naut Coutour and Crush Station to purchase different gear, Ammo Knights for weapons, and a new digital CCG called Table Turf Battles. There are 12 stages for multiplayer in total, some new and several returning, along with new weapons like Stingers and Splatanas.

Even the core gameplay has received some new moves like the Squid Roll and Squid Surge maneuvers. Of course, those keen on PvE can experience a brand new campaign, “Return of the Mammalians,” and co-op with Salmon Run Next Wave. Splatoon 3 is out on September 9th for Nintendo Switch, with additional weapons, stages, gear catalogues, and more coming free after launch.

Soulstice

Reply Game Studios’ Soulstice may seem like your average hack and slash action game with launchers, Stingers, combos and so on. But there’s a lot more to this tale of two sisters, Briar and Lute, as they venture to the city of Ilden and battle forces from beyond the Veil. The dark fantasy art direction and story-telling, combined with the solid combat variety and intriguing story, should make for an interesting experience.

Soulstice is out on September 20th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, with a free demo available to try on Steam.

Slime Rancher 2

Monomi Park’s Slime Rancher 2 going into early access on September 22nd for PC and Xbox Series X/S. While Beatrix LeBeau returns as the protagonist, players will venture to the new Rainbow Island to gather its slimes. Though it offers improved visuals and new slimes, you’ll still be collecting and raising them to earn Newbucks and expand the farm.

Though the full extent of content for the early access launch has yet to be revealed, the developer promises “a big world to explore, many different slimes to collect and combine, and an introduction to the game story and the mystery behind Rainbow Island.”

FIFA 23

Unlike its contemporaries, FIFA 23 signals the end of an era as Electronic Arts’ agreement with FIFA comes to an end. As such, it offers much of what fans expect – over 19,000 players, more than 100 licensed stadiums, 30 licensed leagues, over 700 clubs and so on. In addition to HyperMotion2, which uses machine learning for more than 6,000 animations, and Technical Dribbling for more responsive turning and dribbling, this year features the FA Women’s Super League and French Division 1 Féminine (with more coming post-launch).

The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup will be playable alongside the 2022 FIFA World Cup. And of course, it wouldn’t be FIFA without the return of Ultimate Team, for better or worse. Unfortunately, many of the new gameplay features are exclusive to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Google Stadia. Furthermore, the Nintendo Switch is getting the same Legacy Edition as the past few years with very few gameplay changes. With FIFA 23 releasing on September 27th, it remains to be seen if it ends the series on a high note.

Serial Cleaners

As the follow-up to Draw Distance’s 2017 breakout hit, Serial Cleaners leans more into the “fantasy” of portraying a cleaner for the mob. This time, there are four cleaners to choose from, each with their unique skills. However, you’re still working through different environments to dispose of dead bodies, clean up the evidence and avoid any police that happens by.

With a fast degree of stealth, open-ended maps with dynamic scenarios, and a non-linear story with different choices to make, Serial Cleaners promises a gritty experience inspired by Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. It’s out on September 22nd for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Return to Monkey Island

It’s been almost 31 years since the mysterious ending of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. Director Ron Gilbert thus returns to provide the thrilling conclusion to the saga with Return to Monkey Island, releasing on September 19th for Nintendo Switch and PC. It sees Guybrush Threepwood (reprised by Dominic Armato) getting his mojo back, encountering new and familiar faces, and ultimately, maybe, finally discovering the Secret of Monkey Island.

New locations like Brr Muda and Terror Island await along with reactive dialogue trees, an integrated hint system and even a new Casual Mode for the less hardcore players to enjoy the story.

Session: Skate Sim

Session: Skate Sim has been in early access since September 2019 for PC and Xbox One. Along with dual stick controls, it offers realistic physics, four difficulty levels and various locations to skate in like New York City, Philadelphia and the recently revealed San Francisco. In addition to challenges, which net cash for spending on t-shirts, caps, shoes, and more, players can customize their skateboard with over 250 parts.

There’s also a full-fledged video editor for creating clips, complete with different viewpoints, filters, and so on. Can Session fill the void before the new Skate launches? We’ll find out when version 1.0 arrives on September 22nd on PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, and PS5.

The September launch for Slime Rancher 2 will be an early access release, with developent presumed to continue all the way up to the game’s final release.

Slime Rancher 2 continues the adventures of Beatrix LeBeau. Its main setting this time around will be Rainbow Island, which is described as a mysterious land filled with ancient technology, unknown natural resources, and new slimes.

Slime Rancher 2 was announced back in June 2021 with an announcement trailer. Its Xbox Series X/S release will be accompanied by a day one release on Xbox Game Pass as well.

The game got a preview trailer earlier this year, showing off some gameplay for ranching slimes as well as exploration.

https://twitter.com/slimerancher/status/1560310764321341441?s=21&t=92uTQbqKm2pcaLRWXJBvaQ