Coatsink have announced a sequel to Islanders, their pastelcore seaside town-arranger, which was the last game Alec Meer ever reviewed for RPS. Until he reviewed Kentucky Route Zero: Act V, a year or so later. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Alec had planned that deliberately to screw me up. But I’ll forgive him because the KRZ review is very good and thoughtful, and also because the first trailer for Islanders: New Shores is extremely calming. Here you go.
Out summer 2025, New Shores adheres to the first game’s formula of carefully plonking down buildings to milk various adjacency bonuses and achieve a certain level score. Over the course of each stage, you unlock more and fancier buildings, each alighting in your inventory with that gentle kiss-pop effect that has become the cosy gaming genre’s acoustic signature – a sort of Wilhelm Scream for creators of games about soft sunsets and rake-wielding bunnies making friends.
New Shores contains some new shores, obviously – we can expect “50 dynamic island generators offering endless variety”. It also harbours new features. Foremost among them are boons – “one-time power ups unlocked on each stage as you collect points, offering a helping hand that will become vital as you take on the game’s tricker levels”. These might let you duplicate buildings in your inventory or replace those you’ve already built, among other “intriguing new twists”. Sounds like that might come in handy with the new “advanced scoring systems that reward clever tactics”.
There’s also a new Sandbox mode (with separate save files), “44 unique building types”, seven “stunning island properties”, and a juicy photo mode with a spread of filters and a turntable camera setting. Streamers, meanwhile, get Twitch integration which lets viewers vote on building choices.
It all seems like Good Stuff, though I do consider it a little malapropos that one of the islands at the end of the trailer appears to be an active volcano. Did Islanders have volcanoes? I never unlocked any.