Hey Super Animals! We hope you all had a very hoppy (and noodle-y) Respawning Day and thanks for bearing with our short Mooseletter delay while we sorted out last week’s Switch hiccup—more on that below.

We know a lot of you are wondering about our progress on Super Animal World, so this month’s Mooseletter is all about that. We wanted to give you a clearer sense of why it’s taken so much longer than we hoped and where we are now in the process (without spoiling anything, of course).

Super Animal World has been a dream of ours since as far back as 2019, when we first experienced the uniquely friendly social space our community created in pre-game lobbies, something we hadn’t really seen in other games we’d played. But before we could tackle something this ambitious, we had to finish the core game: releasing v1.0 out of Early Access and then adding major post-launch content like the Bwoking Dead, SAW vs Rebellion v2, a host of new weapons, items, and points-of-interest, and countless other community-requested features. After several successful seasons, we felt it was the right moment to slow our regular seasonal updates and dive fully into creating Super Animal World.

Even while updating SAR these last few years, we were imagining what the island could become if it were brought fully to life outside of the royale. Super Animal World builds on everything that’s already there, but reimagines how players experience it through quests, minigames, storytelling, and social features. It’s a foundation we’re excited to expand on for years to come, and one that we hope deepens the connection both new and longtime players feel to the world, and to each other.

You might’ve heard about the “ninety-ninety” rule: the first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, and the remaining 10% takes the other 90%. As far as tongue-in-cheek developer wisdom goes, this one turned out to be painfully accurate. Early prototyping moved quickly, which was exciting but gave us a deceptively optimistic sense of how fast we could finish the whole thing.

What we initially underestimated was just how complex it would be to build an expansion that adds so much new content while also seamlessly integrating with the existing game. On top of that, our original "Summer 2024" target turned out to be more wishful thinking than realistic estimation. We wanted it done then, but we hadn't yet grasped the full scope of what we were building.

We did include an "...or when it's ready" caveat, which, let's be honest, we're leaning pretty heavily on right now.

As if Super Animal World wasn’t ambitious enough on its own, we decided to return to self-publishing in the middle of it. It was absolutely the right call, but the transition was messy, time-consuming, and easily set us back about six months of focused dev time (and a solid chunk of our already-questionable sanity). The upside is that we’re no longer beholden to anyone else, and our team is more empowered than ever to bring Super Animal World to life as we’ve envisioned it.

Despite everything we’ve been juggling, this month felt like a real turning point. The expansion still needs plenty of polish, but during our latest playtest, a few of us actually paused and said out loud that it finally felt like we were playing a real, integrated game instead of testing separate prototypes.

This week, we put Super Animal World in front of 20 external playtesters who had never played Super Animal Royale before. We wanted to see how well our new onboarding and storytelling could guide and engage brand-new players, and whether the experience felt fun and intuitive. Thankfully, it really landed. Even in its early state, the testers genuinely had a great time, and their feedback is already helping us polish rough edges and make the early-game flow even smoother.

We've reached a point where core game design questions are mostly solved, and our focus is shifting heavily toward content creation: writing the remaining NPC quests, expanding progression systems, and testing and polishing everything for launch.

We still can't announce an official release date yet, but we remain committed to launching Super Animal World this year, and we're working as quickly as humanly (and animal-y!) possible to make that happen.

To help you follow along with the expansion’s development, we’ve put together some highly scientific progress bars below. We’ll update them each month to show which parts of the expansion we’re actively working on, but not every bar will move every time. Some systems may be on pause while others take the spotlight, depending on what the team is focused on that month. And sometimes bars might even move (gulp) backward, especially if we decide a feature needs a rethink or redesign.

A few important caveats:

• Not every category starts or finishes at the same time, and not every bar will take the same time to complete. Many features depend on others being completed first, so don’t expect every bar to progress evenly.
  
• Percentages reflect our best estimate of current progress, not time spent. For example, the Content & Quests category is at 25%, but this initial portion included significant rewriting and careful refinement to get the quest structure feeling just right. With that groundwork complete, progress on the remaining quests should accelerate.
  
• Some bars might speed up toward the end. Once core systems are locked in, creating and polishing content usually moves faster.

We hope this peek behind the curtain gives you a better feel for the road ahead, and we can’t wait to share more in the coming months as we get closer to launch!


Every month, we put out a call for questions on Pixile’s Twitter[x.com] and Bluesky[bsky.app] and answer them right here in the Mooseletter!

Make sure to follow us so you don’t miss the call next month, and as always, feel free to also share your feedback in the SAR Discord[discord.gg] or start a discussion right here on Steam.

From: Wheezy[x.com]
Will there be more roadmaps regarding the development process/updates? Transparency is pretty important in a community.

Surprise! Hope today’s Mooseletter helps on this front. :)

We’ll probably return to roadmaps again once Super Animal World is out the door since they’re good for breaking down individual features that are coming next (and we have a lot planned for post-release too). Super Animal World is such a huge project that breaking it down into a feature list doesn’t work quite as well, but we do have categories of features like the redesigned UI and menus that we hope to do deep dives into as the project gets closer to release and they’re ready to show.

From: Silly[x.com]
Will S.A.W add new functions to the minimals such as animations or activities? Minimals can stay as a non p2w experience but they could get special interactions like playing with them or placing accessories on them

We don’t have any major changes to minis planned for Super Animal World specifically, but these are great thoughts, and we’ve had a bunch of ideas of our own that we’d like to bring to minis in the future, so keep the feedback coming!

From: RealPlasmaRac[x.com]
How do you decide which super animal to do next?? Do you spin a wheel full of random animals??

We haven't built a giant spinning wheel of animals just yet, but now that you’ve said it, it feels like a missed opportunity. In reality though, we usually choose based on a mix of what players are most excited about and what fits thematically with upcoming updates. There are still tons of Super Animals we’d love to add, and some are already lined up for future events and updates. It’s something we say a lot, but it’s true: if there’s one you’re hoping to see, let us know—your suggestions play a big role in shaping what’s next!

From: Mounticat[bsky.app]
How does Pixile plan to increase SARs replayability with Super Animal World?

Super Animal World adds a whole new layer of activities that give players more reasons to return to the island regularly. Fishing, bug catching, and hamsterball racing offer relaxing ways to spend time between matches, while also complementing core modes like Battle Royale, SAW vs Rebellion, and The Bwoking Dead. With the new Social Hub acting as a natural gateway between experiences, the island feels more vibrant and lived-in, offering a natural flow between competition and connection. Time spent in the new SAW activities also counts toward your progression, since they award XP just like matches in Battle Royale.

From: Lock[bsky.app]
How big of an impact does the community have on what's added to the game? Other than the current season, has there ever been a season that was highly influenced by the community's suggestions?

Our community plays a huge role in shaping what we add to the game! Updates like The Dragon’s Loot and Party Animals introduced many long-requested Super Animals and items, while the By Popular Request Pass was a direct celebration of community-inspired cosmetics and designs. Beyond cosmetics, player feedback has frequently guided gameplay decisions too, from the Zip-and-Go revamp, to the infection changes in Bwoking Dead, to which powerups we’ve chosen to tweak (Impossible Tape) or temporarily retire (rip Juicer).

While we can't always respond individually to every piece of feedback, your comments genuinely help drive our internal conversations and prioritization. We’re always listening, and your creativity and care make the game better in ways we never could have pulled off alone.

From: bro guy[x.com]
How many people work on Super Animal Royale?

Our team is up to 16 now! But some of us are part-time, so all together we probably add up to around 9-10 full-time equivalents. We also work with a few external companies supporting us on things like Quality Assurance and more recently, UI design.


Last week’s Nintendo firmware update knocked SAR offline on Switch, but we submitted a fix the same day and worked with Nintendo to get it published as quickly as possible. We’re happy to say it’s now resolved!

To make it up to all the Switch players who lost playtime during the outage, and to thank everyone across all platforms for your continued patience as we build toward Super Animal World, we’re throwing a Double XP Weekend for everyone!

From Friday, May 9th to Monday, May 12th, all XP earned from matches and challenges will be doubled. We really appreciate you sticking with us, and we hope you enjoy the well-earned bonus XP!

It’s no secret that the Super Animal community is bursting with creativity, and we love getting to spotlight the incredible fanart you share. Here are some of our recent favorites from the past month!

Art by Noko

Art by Salad Cat

Art by FreddieInDaBoxx

Art by UnflappedFlea

Art by Resh1maru

If you’re posting your fanart on social media, use the hashtag #superanimalroyale or tag us directly so we don’t miss it! You can also share it in our Discord server[discord.gg], where we’ve got active channels just for fan creations and an incredibly talented art community.

We hope this Mooseletter gives you a clearer picture of how development on the Super Animal World expansion is progressing. We’re excited to keep sharing more as it comes together, and if there’s anything you’d like to see us cover in the next edition, let us know in the comments!

For all the latest Super Animal World news, subscribe to our ​​newsletter[animalroyale.com] and follow us on:

[bsky.app][discord.gg]You can also follow us on Facebook[facebook.com], Instagram[instagram.com], Reddit, TikTok[tiktok.com], and Threads[threads.net].

See you on the island, Super Animals!

P.S. We finally made a Steam Publisher Page! It's shiny, it's official, and it has buttons you can click. Take a peek, tell us what you think, and toss it a follow to stay in the loop on all things Pixile.

- Michael, Logan, & the Community team