The slimy indie hit returns
Lots of great indie games have been getting a lot of love this year — Stray was Annapurna’s biggest launch by far, and Cult of the Lamb had over a million players in a week. Now it looks like Slime Rancher 2 is joining those ranks, because it has reached a big milestone of over 100,000 copies within the first six hours of its release. Nick Popovich, co-founder and CEO of the studio behind the Slime Rancher series Monomi Park, shared a tweet yesterday thanking fans for making the game a success.
For those who may not be familiar, the first Slime Rancher game came out back in 2017 after about a year of being in early access. In the game, players take on the role of a farmer tasked with collecting and breeding different types of slimes on their very own ranch, all wrapped up in an open-world FPS-style packaging. Critical reception to Slime Rancher was favorable, but over the years it garnered something of a cult following, and got PlayStation and Switch releases years after its initial launch for PC and Xbox.
I had a pipe dream in my head that we could sell 100k copies of Slime Rancher 2 in the first 24 hrs if the stars aligned. And we did that in less than 6 hrs. No idea where this crazy train is headed but so grateful to have a chance to ride it. Thank you all so very much. 🚂✨
— Nick Popovich (@NickPopovich) September 22, 2022
Anecdotally, I’ve seen love for the Slime Rancher series spread through word of mouth more than anything — it’s another one of those cozy farming-style games that players just can’t seem to get enough of. It’s exciting to see the devs put out a sequel to the beloved indie game that has been met with nearly universal praise, because maintaining that momentum can be difficult.
100,000 may seem like a relatively small number compared to some huge launches that can be in the millions, but for an indie studio, that can be life-changing. Here’s hoping we continue to see more great things from Monomi Park, because they’ve managed to tap into a certain kind of magic that we don’t see very often.
