My Time at Sandrock kickstarts return to Portia's universe

I loved My Time at Portia. I never finished the game - as I have little time for games outside of work - but I did like it enough to buy an additional copy on PS4 after getting the PC version via Humble Bundle. I spent about 40 early-pandemic hours wandering around Portia, building up my homestead and mining for stuff before I had to regretfully move on.

So I was delighted to wake up this morning and see games journalism internet positively littered with news that Portia is receiving a sequel - My Time at Sandrock. Here's the trailer (thanks IGN!):

On the game's Kickstarter page, developer Pathia Games says that they are fully funded to finish the game, but they are looking for an extra $100,000 to complete some advanced multi-player features. 

"When we started working on Sandrock, it was supposed to be a downloadable addition to My Time at Portia. But as we delved deeper into game production, we realized that in order to fully express the tale of Sandrock, we needed to start from scratch. We required better graphics, better optimization, more story, and more satisfying gameplay systems: basically, we needed better production values across the board. On top of that, we really wanted to include a form of multiplayer that would really meet expectations for our players, and My Time at Portia’s programming structure just didn’t support that."

Pivoting from Portia's wooded/river laden area to a more frontier-like environment gives Pathia the chance to explore some new gameplay ideas. "Water is a premium in Sandrock, with the only source being from Martle’s Oasis. Wood is also a rare resource, as not many trees grow in the area. Most of the trees around the oasis were cut by the original settlers: nowadays, you’ll have to find alternatives. The good news is that there are vast amounts of relics around these parts, some of them even hidden in plain sight!"

The team at Pathia is looking to release the game into early access in March 2021, with a full release expected in Spring 2022. Following that, Sandrock will be released on "GOG, Epic Store, WeGame, and other PC platforms. The PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and next-gen console versions will release in Summer 2022."

Seems like a long time to wait, but if the game is anywhere as great as Portia, the wait will be well worth it.