Sam Coster, Creative Director for ‘Crashlands 2’, Details How the Sequel Is Bigger and Better Than Ever (Interview)

The original Crashlands took the survival genre by storm. With its quirky humor, great visuals, and generally fantastic pick-up-and-playability? It’s one of those games anyone could enjoy. Now, 9 years after the original launch, the team at Butterscotch Shenanigans is bringing Crashlands back to be bigger and better than ever with Crashlands 2.

I had the opportunity to chat with Sam Coster, the creative director for Crashlands 2. We spoke about what the team is doing to ensure that fans are ready for this crash landing.

‘Crashlands’ is one of those games that blew right up and developed an incredibly passionate fanbase around it. What is ‘Crashlands 2’ doing to keep those fans happy, while also opening doors to new players?

Crashlands 2 is built on everything that made the original so beloved. Its humor, dancey combat, ridiculous quests, wild alien world, and thriving-focused approach to the survival genre. As one of our early playtesters describes it, it’s as if we took Crashlands and “turned everything up to 11.” All those major systems and high-level ideas are there. But, we’ve redesigned every single one of them from the ground up to make a more cohesive, immersive, and enjoyable game. 

It’s been 9 years since the original, so we wanted to grow the game up with our fans. Part of that change is in the controls. We opened them up to be more complex than the original “single-tap” approach. Which then enabled this explosion of interesting design depth for us to work with. And that deeper, more immersive design is what we think will delight fans of the franchise while attracting a new audience.

Seeing the graphical upgrade from ‘Crashlands’ to ‘Crashlands 2’ is exciting. It looks to keep the same style and charm as the first game. What went into the creative process of making sure that ‘Crashlands 2’ looks as good as it does? 

With Crashlands 2, we wanted to deliver on a more immersive world that has that signature Crashlands irreverence baked into everything. Our explicit goal was that if someone sees a screenshot of the game, they should immediately want to explore it. If they see it in motion, they should demand getting to play it. 

We started by switching to an isometric rather than top-down view, which immediately added depth (literally) to the world. Then we experimented with blending traditional frame-by-frame animation techniques with modern animation tools, using stick-figures to see how this dynamic style of animation could work.

What Goes Into Making A Game?

Flux, our heroine, was the first test case. If we could make it so people had an emotional reaction to her just running around, we figured we could extend that attitude across the whole game. After a lot of tech and art experimentation, we finally got her loping around and showed it to the team and they burst into laughter. So, we knew we had gone the correct route.

The amount of technical work that underpins all of this has been crazy. My brother Adam built a new asset pipeline to manage all the complexity. While I worked with my other brother Seth, who does the gameplay programming, to solve just about every art-meets-gameplay challenge you can think of. We even had to rope in the GameMaker team (our engine) to get the engine’s baseline functionality extended.

That’s a big part of the reason why the development cycle took 4 years. We basically rebuilt the entire studio’s approach to making games over the first two years so we could become the kind of studio that could even make Crashlands 2. Then, we still had to make it!

Can players expect the same feature set as the original game, or will things be widened and evolved? If so, what can you let players know to expect in the upcoming sequel? 

Everything fans loved about the original has been expanded, reimagined, and vastly improved. Combat has very different playstyles with all kinds of ludicrous synergies and abilities to tinker with. The Pets are back (of course) with more interesting combat capabilities and passives. Basebuilding has that lovely isometric viewpoint alongside roofs, and your new alien roommates, gardening, fishing, and cooking all have their own progression to enjoy. The world itself is just brimming with stories and interesting stuff to find and interact with.

The original ‘Crashlands’ did have split-screen multiplayer, but looking at Steam, it’s currently only showing Single Player. Can players look forward to crashing into lands with friends, or is this a solo adventure only?

We added couch co-op to the original Crashlands when it came to the Switch, a few years post-launch, where Player 2 could take control of Juicebox and become an active sidekick in Flux’s adventure. With Crashlands 2, we’ve focused on delivering the best single-player experience possible. So, for now, it’s a solo adventure.

Can players expect to see any familiar faces from the original ‘Crashlands,’ or is this going to be a brand new adventure with all new friends to make along the way? 

Players will find themselves in a different part of the planet with all new resources, creatures, and biomes. But, there are a handful of old friends you’ll encounter. Grandmammy and her Fifth Arm squad are back, as well as a number of other memorable characters. I can’t say much more than that! We did make sure to account for players new to the franchise. So, while there are recurring characters and ideas, new players won’t be left confused about what’s going on.

When it comes time to create new enemies, monsters, and anything in the world of ‘Crashlands,’ what goes into the design process to help bring them to life? 

We always start by establishing context. Where is the player at in their adventure? What kind of materials do we need to make the next tier of gear or tools or quest items? What are the resources around this area? How could a creature interact with those things? Ecologically, what kind of niche would this creature fill? Is it predator or prey? And lastly, how can we zag on the player to give them a surprise or challenge their expectations about what’s possible in this world?

We call this a ‘verbal concept’ phase. It’s usually a 30-minute or so meeting where we pool some ideas together, riff off each other, and build this agreed-upon “high concept” of the entity. From there, I’ll disappear for a bit, gathering references, occasionally popping in with a quick sketch or a new reference that gave me an idea. We’ll continue to refine until I get what I call a “garbage sketch”.

Garbage Sketches Are Still Better Than What I can Do, Honestly!

Then, it’s a day or so to translate that into something actually good that fits in the world. And then without animations, we integrate it into the game, get it moving around and interacting with the existing world, create its combat moveset, figure out its loot drops and make those, add an Egg and design the Pet version, and then once the whole biome is functioning as intended we return (this can be months later!) and do the animation buildout. Animation takes a very long time, and given my dual roles as artist and co-designer, is something we have to do once we’ve answered the bajillion other questions that come from building out a new part of the world. 

Once the animations are complete, we send some videos and references over to our sound team, Fat Bard, who add all the zany creature noises to them. And then? VOILA! A creature is born.

The original ‘Crashlands’ was available on nearly every platform. But currently, ‘Crashlands 2’ is only releasing on Mobile and PC. Is there any reason why you’re forgoing a console launch right away, and can fans expect a port in the future? 

Original Crashlands launched on Mobile and PC simultaneously at first. Then, rolled out to Switch and Xbox in the following couple of years. Consoles add a lot of complicated technical requirements and make QA super difficult. So, while we’re fully prepared to get Crashlands 2 onto everything (it plays great with controller, touch, and keyboard+mouse), we’ve chosen the Mobile + PC (and Steam Deck) launch targets to start with. We’ll consider other platforms based on how the game performs.

Everybody has a favorite pet; do you have a favorite creature that you’ve loved adding to ‘Crashlands 2’? And if so, what would it be? 

The Sluggabun, the first creature the player comes across, is honestly my favorite. Not because of its combat synergies or how it functions as a pet in particular (when I’m playing, I tend to favor the Bumblebore, Phanta, or Shmu), but because it was the test case for the entire ecology of this awesome world we built.

I still remember Seth and I struggling to get the thing to properly hop around, and how the addition of its various calls and trills added atmosphere to an otherwise empty game world, and how on a whim I added its meerkat-esque stance where it looks around and sniffs. It suddenly felt alive in a way that nothing we’d made before could match. The humble Sluggabun will always be my #1 because it was proof, for me, that making this game was possible.

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I would like to thank Sam Coster, Creative Director for Crashlands 2, for taking the time out of their busy schedule to chat with me about the upcoming game. Crashlands 2 will be available on Steam and Mobile on April 10, 2025.