almost 4 years of "early access".
Modern gaming is dead.

on a more serious note,
I personally can't tell the difference between this and the first game. It's just the same thing again but in a new environment with some fancy new shaders and some minor QOL changes (like gadgets being placeable anywhere, which I actually ♥♥♥♥ with heavily).

TL/DR: There is not enough new FUN content to make this game superior to it's predecessor.

I know this game is still in EA, but it's been in EA for almost 3 years now so I'm losing my patience with it. There are plenty of new areas, slimes, and resources to collect in this game, but it's just not worth the 30 dollar price tag (up from the 20 dollar tag of the original game). I've had a lot of fun exploring the new areas and collecting the new slimes, but once you get to the Grey Labyrinth you hit a MASSIVE grind wall. Info on said grind wall -> There are 19 shadow slime gates in total, and to open all of them YOU NEED 1000 SHADOW PLORTS. Shadow slimes work similarly to gold slimes; you have to shoot them with items from your vac-pac to get them to drop their plorts, and the slimes disappear after a short amount of time. Combo this with the fact that there's a ton of cliffs and lava in the Grey Labryinth and it's a total pain to get a small amount of them, nevermind 1000! Combine this with the fact that there's currently no automation in the game, and SR2 is just a prettier, more grind-y version of SR1, but it costs 10 dollars more. I think if you HAVEN'T played SR1, then picking up SR2 would be worth it, but if you have just stick to the original game for a while (a LONG while, apparently).

If you want to play Slime Rancher again, except in different colors this game is for you.

So disappointing.