If you don’t know it, Shelter 3 is the in development sequel to Might And Delight’s series of animal mom games. Shelter 1 started out with a mother badger protecting her babies. Shelter 2 featured a mother lynx and her cubs. Shelter 3 will have you play as a mother elephant shepherding whatever their babies are called. Calves? I’ll go with calves. News on Shelter 3 was light while Might And Delight worked to crowdfund their other project Book Of Travels. They’ve returned with a new teaser trailer and revised release schedule for the mother-tusking sequel.
The teaser video below is short and slow, as elephants are, you know. A mother elephant leads her babies through a forest of mushroom-shaped purple trees. I’ve always been a fan of Might And Delight’s art direction: models covered in hunks of pattered textures that look like they might have come off that one top your human mother wears to parties. Their style is just as lovely as ever here in this purple forest with pops of small yellow flowers. Along the way, mama elephant trumpets at a looming crocodile to scare it back into the river because Shelter games always need a predator threatening to snap up your little babies.
The new trailer also comes with an announcement from Might And Delight about progress on the third of the Shelter series. “Much like an elephant, development is coming along slowly but surely,” they say. The team isn’t as far along with work on Shelter 3 as they’d hoped and have pushed their estimated release back to “a realistic early 2021.” They say the team are currently working on “elephant behaviours, level design and bringing some animal NPCs to life.”
Although it’s sad to see the elephant adventure pushed back to next year, there’s still Might And Delight’s “tiny MMO” Book Of Travels to look forward to this year, which they plan to beta test this summer and release in early access in the autumn.
While we wait on Shelter 3, you can wishlist it on Steam.