Gaucho and the Grassland, the animal farm sim from Brazilian studio Epopeia Games, has picked up two new Steam bundles pairing it with fellow indie titles Lakeside Bar and Shelldiver. Both bundles went live on March 13, 2026, offering different entry points into a game that trades tractors and crop rows for something quieter and stranger: a life tending livestock across the pampas of southern Brazil, where local folklore bleeds into the daily routine. The game is available now on PC, with console versions planned for Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation.
What sets Gaucho and the Grassland apart from the usual farm sim is what it leaves out. There's no agriculture here. No planting seasons, no irrigation puzzles, no harvest timers ticking down. The entire loop revolves around animals: building shelters, breeding livestock, gathering the resources they provide. Your land grows not through fields of wheat but through the creatures living on it. Breeding opens up new resources, which feed back into improving the farm, which lets you raise more animals in better conditions. It's a tighter circle than most games in this space tend to draw, and the focus gives each animal a weight that spreadsheet farming rarely manages. Alongside your horse and a faithful dog, you explore different biomes across varying weather and times of day, gathering what you need to keep the operation running. Helping local residents builds your charisma, which in turn unlocks new paths and resources, tying the social side of the game directly into progression rather than treating it as flavour.
That progression carries a thread most farm sims don't touch. Woven through the animal husbandry and resource gathering are missions rooted in Latin American folklore, encounters with mystical beings drawn from the legends of southern Brazil. The game calls its world a mystical wildland, and the culture it draws from gives it a texture that feels genuinely distinct. This isn't generic pastoral fantasy. The pampas have their own mythology, their own relationship between people and land, and Epopeia Games has built the game around that specificity. Winner of "Best Regional Game Pitch" at BIG Festival 2022, the concept resonated early, and the studio's pedigree backs it up. Epopeia has spent 15 years in the Brazilian games industry, most recently co-developing Mullet MadJack with Hammer 95 Studios, which took "Best Brazil Game" at BIG Festival 2025.
The mood the game cultivates is deliberate. This is a relaxing experience built around routine, connection with nature, and the rhythm of caring for living things. The two new bundles lean into that identity from different angles. The Lakeside Bar pairing groups it with another game about managing a cozy space, running a lakeside bar where you mix drinks and build a gathering spot for regulars. The Shelldiver bundle takes a different approach, connecting the open grassland exploration with an underwater adventure about discovering ocean secrets. One bundle emphasises the comfort of routine, the other the pull of discovery in unfamiliar places.
Both pairings highlight something true about Gaucho and the Grassland itself. It holds those two impulses in the same game: the warmth of tending your land each day and the strangeness of a world where folklore creatures walk the fields alongside your livestock.