My Time at Sandrock, a sequel to My Time at Portia, launches into early access next year

My Time at Portia is a pretty great game if you’re someone like me. If you are someone like me, I really apologise and I hope you come right with your life eventually but I also want to pat you on the back and applaud your excellent taste in farming simulator, slice-of-life games. While My Time at Portia wasn’t Stardew Valley in its portrayal of escapism to the most idyllic town conceivable it did other things that Stardew just couldn’t: A more fleshed out combat system and a more expansive world to name a few. Now it’s time to see if Portia really was as big as Pathea Games could go as they’ve announced My Time at Sandrock!

Expected to launch into early access in March of 2021, the developers are going the crowdfunding route in an attempt to include a feature that was sorely missed in Portia: Multiplayer. Reading off the game’s Kickstarter page, the team is desperate to expand on the social aspects of their system and thus, multiplayer seems to be the main priority. “We’ve heard you, and we are aiming to have a specific game mode for multiplayer, without interfering with our development of single-player. Much is still on the drawing board or in the design phase, but the aim is to support at least 4 players in an open world map, separate from the single-player map,” says Pathea Games.

Beyond that, My Time at Sandrock seems to be exactly what you’d expect as a sequel (which supposedly started out as an expansion for Portia but grew too large). You’ll rock up in a dusty town and be tasked with fixing it up. You’ll be able to farm, craft, make friends with the villages, explore dungeons and just live your adventurous life. “My Time at Sandrock will maintain the simulation versus RPG balance that My Time at Portia had, with more depth for both. We are aiming to give the player a truly satisfying feeling when the game “ends.” We’re also working to give you a beautiful open world to gather materials, explore, and maintain a homestead. There will be mesas, deep canyons, vast deserts, endless salt plains, breathtaking ruins, and more!”

My Time at Portia was a fun little time but it’s certainly not my favourite of the life-simulators that have burst onto the scene in recent years. Here’s hoping that Sandrock goes above and beyond and places Pathea Games at the peak of the genre! I literally watched the studio hit their Kickstarter goal while this was being written, so that’s a good sign!

Last Updated: October 27, 2020