After many months of uncertainty, we now have an idea of when the Party Animals release window might be. The devs have broken their silence on Steam, revealing work they've been doing on the game since its last major update back in 2020.
When is the Party Animals release window?
In an announcement on the Party Animals Steam page, developer Recreate Games outlines some of the challenges it's been facing when creating Party Animals, as well as revealing a tentative Party Animals release window. The studio says it wants to launch the game in 2022, although there could be delays "due to quality and compliance approvals". Recreate points to a fairly sizable team expansion as one of the reasons for development delays; the dev team is three times as big as it was when work on Party Animals began, and this necessitates more communication and planning between staffers. There's also the Shanghai lockdown, which has impacted other devs too and which Recreate says has posed a "new efficiency challenge". All of this goes together to put Party Animals in what Recreate calls "production hell", but the studio points to major devs like CD Projekt Red and Rockstar having experienced this as proof that it's a pretty universal development experience.
In the last two years, Recreate says it's been working on adding new maps and characters, but in addition, "almost everything" has been reworked completely. Fur textures, physics, and maps have all been totally overhauled, as has the UI. You can get a look at how the new fur textures and character art direction are looking right here. First, here's a shot of an adorable little doggie.
Recreate also shared an image of the bunny character, and they've somehow made it even more adorable. Check it out.
There's plenty more in the new Steam update, too. Recreate says it's revamped animals' mouths so that they have teeth, and you'll be able to see their teeth and tongue if they get knocked out. The studio has also compiled a whole bunch of community suggestions for characters over on a separate Steam post, some of which are super adorable. There's even a pug in a luchador mask, and believe it or not, some community members actually found it within themselves to downvote said pug. For shame, Party Animals community. For shame.
What is Party Animals?
Party Animals is a super-cute animal-themed multiplayer fighter with a "realistic physics engine" and plenty of different animals to play as. Unlike games like Gori: Cuddly Carnage, Party Animals is wholesome and cute, with lots of exaggerated animations and over-the-top moments. If you can imagine Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (which is going free-to-play soon) but with animals instead of jellybeans and fighting instead of Saturday night gameshow games, then you're on the right track.
We don't yet know exactly when you'll be able to get your hands on Party Animals this year or whether it'll be delayed, but we're seriously hoping that it does arrive in 2022. When it does, it'll hit PC and Xbox consoles. No official announcement has yet been made regarding a PlayStation or Switch version of the game, but there's almost certainly demand for it. We'll bring you more on Party Animals, including any potential release date info, as soon as we get it.
