For nearly a decade, Super Animal Royale has quietly built a dedicated audience with its unusual mix of adorable animals and chaotic battle royale action. Now, developer Pixile Studios is preparing to push Super Animal Royale forward again with its next major update, Bright Future, arriving March 31.
The update introduces new weapons, characters, quests, and gameplay mechanics centered around a mysterious meteor crash that shakes up the island.
According to Pixile creative director Michael Silverwood, the new storyline begins with that unexpected arrival.
“A meteor has hit the island, and it kicks off a number of different groups speculating about its origins and what to do with it,” Silverwood said. “So, it has a big banana-shaped chunk out of it.”
That unusual shape quickly becomes important to one of the game’s stranger factions.
“And so, we have this cult in the game that worships bananas,” Silverwood said. “And so, they see it as a sign. And there’s banana altars that appear around the map—you can deposit bananas into them or sacrifice emus on them—and they’ll give you a random chance of a gun or some loot. Or they might also curse you with some surprising different mechanics.”
Those Banan Altars become one of the update’s new gameplay systems, giving players the chance to trade offerings for rare loot, though the results may not always go as planned.
Praise Banan!
While the idea of a banana-worshipping cult might sound unusual, it actually came directly from the game’s community. Pixile narrative director Ruben Grijalva said the concept started as a meme among early players before eventually becoming part of the game’s lore.
“The banan cult was an organic early access little meme that started within the very earliest community members that then got incorporated into the canon of the game’s lore,” Grijalva said.
Silverwood said the developers eventually leaned into the joke after seeing how much it spread among players.
“Community members just kept slipping each other, including their friends, and then they just go, ‘Praise Banan.’ And there was actually a whole Discord server where the only thing anyone would write in the server was praise banan,” Silverwood said.
Bright Future also introduces several new weapons designed to change up firefights across the island. Among them is the X-Ray Cannon, a powerful charge-up laser fueled by shards from the newly arrived meteor that allows players to see enemies through walls. The update also adds the Uzi and Dual Uzis, giving players new close-range combat options.
Pixile is also expanding the roster of playable animals as part of the update.
“We have new super apes. We have the super gorilla and super chimpanzeee that are debuting with this,” Grijalva said.
The update introduces new NPCs connected to the Super Simian Space Society, a group investigating the meteor and the mysterious Banananite material inside it. Their arrival ties into new quests and a retro-futuristic themed Bright Future Animal Pass for the season.
Beyond the headline additions, Bright Future also includes several quality-of-life improvements requested by players, including a Play Again option, auto-accept matchmaking queues, and a search bar for the game’s more than 2,000 cosmetic items.
For Pixile, the update is the latest step in a long development journey for the game.
“And it goes even further back,” Silverwood said. “So 2021 was our version one release, and we actually did early access on Steam in 2018, and the first prototype began in 2017.”
Over that time, the studio says the community has played a major role in shaping the game’s direction.
“I think a big part of it is just being very engaged with the players who are playing,” Silverwood said.
With Bright Future launching March 31 across PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox with full cross-play support, Pixile hopes the update will give both longtime players and newcomers another reason to jump back into the island’s chaotic animal battles.
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Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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