World of Goo 2

When World of Goo arrived in 2008 it earned an enduring reputation for turning a simple premise—sticking sentient balls of goo together to build rickety structures—into a work of wit, melancholy, and picture-book charm. For years the tiny two-person studio 2D Boy (Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel) dismissed questions about a follow-up with the refrain that a sequel would only happen if they discovered ideas big enough to justify it. On 7 December 2023, during The Game Awards, that caveat was apparently satisfied: World of Goo 2 was revealed with a short, gently chaotic trailer and the promise of release in 2024 on Nintendo Switch and PC (initially through the Epic Games Store, with other storefronts implied but unconfirmed). Development is being handled by Tomorrow Corporation, a collaboration between Gabler, Carmel, and their longtime colleague Allan Blomquist, who already share credit for Little Inferno and Human Resource Machine. They have rebuilt the game on a proprietary engine rather than the aged framework of the original, enabling higher-resolution artwork, fluid simulations, and more elaborate physics while still preserving the 2-D puppet-show look that made World of Goo unique. The studio has stressed that nearly every animation is hand-drawn, not procedurally generated, to keep the subtle squish, stretch, and forlorn eye-blinking that fans associate with the goo balls. Although only a few minutes of footage have been shown, certain design shifts are evident. The camera sequences glide across sprawling, multi-screen levels instead of focusing on a single vignette; that suggests puzzles built around long-form engineering rather than quick towers and bridges. New goo varieties are visible—one type looks crystalline, hinting at rigid joints; another seems to splinter into shards when overstressed, implying resources that can fail catastrophically rather than simply detach. Environmental hazards extend beyond the familiar buzz-saw blades and fire pits; gusting winds and flowing water appear to exert continuous forces that must be counterbalanced. The user interface highlights simultaneous input prompts for two controllers, confirming local cooperative play from the start rather than as an optional extra unlocked later, as it was in the Wii version of the first game. Narrative details remain deliberately vague. The debut trailer shows a desolate construction yard littered with the husks of level-completed goo towers from the first game, their signs reading “World of Goo Corporation Reclaimed.” This hints that the sequel treats its predecessor’s ending—which saw the goo launch themselves into space—as a canonical but not entirely triumphant event, leaving the planet in industrial ruin. The studio says text-based storytelling will still emerge through silhouetted signposts written by the sardonic Sign Painter, though the scope may enlarge to small animated cinematics. In terms of structure, Tomorrow Corporation has implied a departure from isolated level menus toward a contiguous overworld that the player physically traverses by moving goo constructs, almost like a physics-based metroidvania. Such a layout would allow persistent structures: build a bridge in one session and return later to find it still standing—or collapsed if neglected. That persistence dovetails with an online component where global leaderboards can display not only number-of-goo-saved stats but snapshots of players’ surviving megastructures, encouraging feats of architectural flamboyance. Accessibility and modern hardware considerations are also in focus. Touch controls are promised for Switch handheld mode and for tablets if mobile ports materialize later. The PC version supports high refresh rates and ultrawide monitors, and the engine’s deterministic physics ensures identical results across machines, a requirement if asynchronous multiplayer challenges are planned. On the audio side, composer Kyle Gabler is scoring an entirely new soundtrack described as “sad carnival marching band meets lo-fi sci-fi,” again blending whimsy with melancholia. No firm release date has been announced beyond “2024,” and the team has cautioned that a small, perfectionist studio can slip if they decide a mechanic needs more tinkering. Nevertheless, press demos at PAX East 2024 impressed hands-on players with responsive controls and a difficulty curve that escalates faster than the original, accommodating veterans who long ago mastered goo-ball acrobatics. The developers maintain that every puzzle still has a straightforward solution for beginners, yet each also contains hidden optimization challenges—finish with the fewest goo balls used, the least structural material, or within time limits that unlock bonus stages.