Interview: Preparing Slime Rancher 2 for Its 1.0 Launch

Slime Rancher 2 first debuted in early access on September 22, 2022, and now the 1.0 release is set for September 23, 2025. It’s been quite some time, with things like a Beatrix Nendoroid and movie confirmation appearing in the meantime. With it finally launching today, Siliconera got a chance to speak with Monomi Park Co-Founder and CEO Nick Popovich about Slime Rancher 2 development, how the team responded to early access feedback, and some gameplay elements making their debut.

Jenni Lada: From the very start, you put the call out for Slime Rancher 2 feedback on Discord and social media. What is the biggest change that resulted from early player reports and request?

Nick Popovich: The first things that come to mind are a bunch of accessibility options that we’ve added over the course of Early Access, with still more on the way after launch. And it’s been great to see the rest of the industry on this trend of providing more of these as well. The more people that can enjoy games to the fullest is better for the industry as a whole. Someone who has a better experience with your game might mean they’re in the market for mine down the road.

Weather is an influential factor and alters gameplay in Slime Rancher 2 1.0. How did you come up with different reactions and are there any you hoped to implement, but couldn’t due to how they functioned in-practice?

Popovich: I think one of the things we did well with our weather system that is similar to all of our updates is separating the feature into two categories, broadly. The first is the stuff that will help drive the experience forward, or how parts of it fit into the game economy, how it affects the gameplay loop, etc. This is par for the course in gamedev, and we wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t do this stuff. 

But the second part is how the feature creates little moments of surprise, or fosters emergent behaviors, or just makes the player feel to experience it. It’s all the soft stuff that usually gets deprioritized in gamedev, and we’re always making sure it’s there. So to that end I think our weather system is really great in delivering the vibes.

And as far as what we hoped to implement but couldn’t, we honestly even got that one in. I mean, it sometimes rains slimes for goodness sake haha.

Images via Monomi Park

How did you rebalance Quantum Drones for Slime Rancher 2 1.0 and ensure they’d be as user-friendly as possible?

Popovich: Quantum drones are an upgrade over the original model in that they can be deployed both on your ranch and out in the range. This gives you the flexibility of choosing to use them to automate portions of your ranch, or send them out into the wild to look for new resources. It actually adds a nice bit of ambiance to the world as you see them busily searching for Slime Science materials… that may or may not exist in this reality.

There will be an action-packed end game included in Slime Rancher 2 after 1.0. How did you work on balancing and implementation, considering this wasn’t an element we’ve seen before?

Popovich: It’s definitely a change of pace from the original. The final moments especially are completely unlike anything we’ve done before in terms of the action and the urgency. But the stakes are also a lot higher narratively and so we felt like it fit. And we’ve also been building to this moment, slowly. Slime Rancher 2 begins not unlike the original but eventually you find yourself in the Grey Labyrinth and navigating it and dealing with its hazards is a step up from the easier pace Slime Rancher typically presents. So by the time you experience the finale I think we’ve done a good job training the player to deal a little more. It’s still 100% Slime Rancher, but definitely demanding a bit more of you.

Images via Monomi Park

How would you feel about Slime Rancher 2 crossover slimes and characters with the 1.0 launch?

Popovich: Put Beatrix in Smash you cowards!

Slime Rancher 2 is available for the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC, as it left early access and 1.0 debuted on September 23, 2025.

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