BUGSNAX: THE ISLE OF BIGSNAINXDIE

Will we bite off more than we can chew?

“IT’S EASY TO LOVE [THE] NEW GIANT BUNGER, CALLED THE BUNGER ROYALE.”

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA EARLY 2022 / PLAYERS 1 / DEV KO-OP

Feeling peckish? Creative director and writer Kevin Zuhn tells us what’s coming to Snaktooth Island this year.

PLAY: The Isle Of Bigsnax is a story expansion slated for release later this year alongside a number of other smaller additions and improvements to the base game. Can you tell us about the studio’s decision to offer this as a free update rather than as paid DLC? Kevin Zuhn: Our logic is that, you know, we’ll be out on more platforms soon, we’re going to be trying to reinvigorate interest in a game more than a year out. And so we want people to be excited and to have new things, new reasons to go back into the game, and […] we want that to be accessible to everybody. We feel like if it’s free, then everybody who’s already played the game will come back and play it again.

PLAY: Where did the idea to super-size the ’snax for this DLC come from?

KZ: We wanted to have a kind of identifiable new mechanic – something that would really set this area apart from the others and something that would make these particular Bugsnax a little bit trickier to catch than the others. There was

We’ll need a lot of cream cheese to polish off this celery-legged stick insect.

also then, of course, the idea of doing like The Lost World: Jurassic Park, right? Where we’re like ‘Oh, a mysterious new island - and now they’re huge!’ […] And it also [introduces] some new interesting mechanics because, if they’re huge, how do you put them in your tiny trap? And I think that’s really it! […] [Encounters like the boss fight against Mothza Supreme] were the most enjoyed [by fans] out of all of the Bugsnax in the game and so we tried to push in a direction more towards that.

PLAY: What’s your favourite Bugsnak introduced in this DLC? KZ: I guess I’ll want to stick to the ones that we’ve revealed already.

Obviously, it’s easy to love [the] new giant Bunger, called the Bunger Royale, that has tater tots instead of french fries for legs. So that one’s great! I also love [the] giant stick bug made out of celery – which is the, I think, Celly Sticks – that was one where we had always wanted to do a stick bug in the main game and never got around to one so it’s like, ‘Finally!’

PLAY: How did the team decide which Grumpuses would get more screen time in this DLC? Did you pick favourites?

KZ: I think one of the primary reasons was like, who would even want to go on this adventure? So it’s a character-based decision because, for example, Triffany – if a new island appeared – would absolutely go look at it. She’s an archaeologist adventurer, of course she’s gonna go! Chandlo is similar. He’s always up for a challenge.

Floofty and Shelda get the least amount of screen time in the game because they show up latest in the story and so we also wanted to just give them more time to be around and do things and to also expand on their relationships to the others who are involved. And so those are the two big components: who’s going to go on this adventure and who really needs more time in the story?