Shelter 3 prepares for elephantine adventures next year
Pack your trunk for a long hike
Announcing a new game on April 1st seems like a foolish prospect to me, but Might And Delight reckon that now is the best time to unveil Shelter 3 to the world, due for release in 2020. While the first two games focused on the fragility of life as a badger and lynx respectively, this time the player has a big role to play - an elephant. You'll be leading their herd through the jungle and across the plains, and protecting the young from predators. It's also a look at a more social breed of animal, with the previous two games being solitary, tense stories. Below, the announcement trailer.
While Might and Delight haven't revealed much about Shelter 3 as a game, we can be sure that their animation game is still on point. Just look at that baby elephant - adorable, right? Which means it's going to feel like a tiger literally tore your heart out when one of the young'ins strays too far from the herd and gets cornered by something nasty. The Shelter series have never been one to shy away from the harsh realities of animal life, the food chain and the struggle for survival. Elephants may be more powerful creatures, but it takes a lot to keep one running, let alone a herd.
The shift in scale has me curious about how they plan on making life as an elephant work. The developers say that "motherhood, social harmony and inheritance are the keys to prosperity", unlike earlier games. I'm very interested to see how they manage to make elephant diplomacy work. Just how do you maintain social harmony within a herd? Being nomadic, grazing creatures, your herd has to continually move forward and share resources, too, which makes me wonder how much will be AI-driven or scripted. What I'm saying is that the devs have some big shoes to fill.
There's no release date (beyond "2020") or price tag on Shelter 3 yet, but you'll never forget when it's coming out if you earmark its Steam page here.