After the success of Shelter with its family of Badgers, Might and Delight have released Shelter 2 moving up in the food chain, as you look after a family of Lynx. Take command of a Lynx mother as she births and takes care of her kittens as they grow and eventually have families of their own. Escape from dangers, hunt prey and raise your family until they can fend for themselves.
The game opens with you the Mother Lynx, pregnant, and being chased down by a hungry pack of Wolves. Welcome to the brief tutorial, have some tension and learn the abilities you can use by escaping the Wolves and finding your shelter before giving birth to your pack of kittens. To expand on the attachment you get to your litter, you can actually name each one of the kittens and this time they are a lot more distinguishable from each other compared to the previous game. The world in Shelter 2 is open, an improvement over the linearity of Shelter which allows a better sense of freedom and ability to hunt down prey.
While the openness is a welcome change, there doesn’t seem to be a huge expansion elsewhere. You can easily find your way back to your shelter with landmarks, and you don’t seem to lose your kids as often as you would have thought after bounding across the landscape with their little legs running after you. In the beginning they eat whatever you hunt for them, until they’re big enough to go and hunt for themselves, and eventually leave to make families of their own which starts a new playthrough for you.
Shelter 2 can be completed in about 2 hours, so it’s a fairly short game, but the addition of playing your kitten as a parent gives another playthrough and on top of that you can gather collectibles for more things to do. Past that, there’s not much else to do, so it’s fairly short lived in that respect. There’s a new satisfaction during Shelter 2 by watching your kittens grow and start fending for themselves before you watch them leave and start their own family and move on in life. Even though you’re a hunter, there is still pressure on from enemies waiting for their chance to ambush your vulnerable situation.
The art style is of course the same aesthetically with its pleasing papercraft-esque theme of the previous game and due to the new openness of the world; you can take in more of the scenery while running around after your prey in the wide fields or the forests. Ambient music and sounds accompany the tensions of the chase or the calmness of the wilderness as you explore and it adds to the immersive atmosphere at times throughout. One of the downfalls that don’t seem to have been worked on is the lack of direction in the open world. You are thrust into the open arms of the wilderness and must make do on your own past the initial tutorials.
However, Shelter 2 is a very simple game to pick up on, regardless of the lack of further tutoring. Controls are the usual WASD and keyboard, with SHIFT being sprint. If you right click, you’ll use the Lynx’s senses which show your prey and landmarks so you know where you are in the world. From then on out, you’re pretty much your own boss, deciding if you want to just raise your cubs or go exploring.
All-in-all, Shelter 2 is a welcome build on top of the original game, but it has a little way to go to make it feel more fleshed out. If anything, the game is great for anyone that wants something ambient and a beautifully generated world. If you’re looking for anything adventurous or action packed, then this will not be for you. I would recommend this game if you have played the first one, just to see how much the series is shaping up. Shelter 2 is looking at the right direction of growth of the series, but there are just some small holes to be filled to make that little bit better. I guess we’ll have to leave nature to take its course should we see a third instalment to the series.