Obsidian Leisure shrunk the children once more this yr with the early entry launch of Grounded 2, which has touched down round three years after the unique Grounded formally launched.
It is a pretty swift return to the franchise for Obsidian, which continues to be one among Microsoft’s most prolific inside studios. Since being acquired by the Xbox maker in November 2018, the Irvine outfit has launched a formidable roster of titles together with Pentiment, Avowed, Grounded and The Outer Worlds. A sequel for the latter might be dropping in October.
The studio’s different sophomore effort, Grounded 2, is already accessible in Xbox Sport Preview and Steam Early Entry. What pushed Obsidian to revisit the little-becomes-large world of Grounded with so many different irons already within the fireplace?
Two phrases: Insect mounts.
Throughout an interview with Sport Developer on Gamescom 2025 present flooring, Grounded 2 sport director Chris Parker and artistic director Justin Vazquez from Eidos-Montreal—which is co-developing the sequel alongside Obsidian—prompt the title won’t exist if gamers hadn’t insisted upon bestriding bugs.
“This was the principle function we wished to deliver to the sport,” says Vazquez. “It was the primary request from the group and it was the most important justification as to why we wished to create a brand new world in Grounded 2. Even when the group had wished to do it within the first one, the world wasn’t constructed to assist it.”
Vazquez explains that mounts, appropriately named ‘Buggies’ by the dev group, needed to be designed hand-in-hand with the atmosphere itself. “We frequently say we could not have completed Buggies with out the park, and we could not have completed the park with out Buggies,” he provides.
On paper, it’d sound like a mechanic that is pretty straightforward to implement. However including mounts to a title like Grounded 2 impacts the expertise in a large method. Parker explains that when you make Buggies too quick, then traversing on foot immediately turns into punishing. However, in the event that they really feel too sluggish, you may have gamers questioning why they had been included within the first place.
“As soon as you have found out how briskly you need the Buggie to go, then you must determine how far aside you need the completely different focal point on the earth” he continues. “Then you must tune each of these items hand-in-hand on the similar time. You have got the identical kinds of points with fight. When you begin preventing stuff, you are balancing for each on-foot fight and Buggie fight.”
As an illustration, Parker says that Buggie fight had gamers feeling “invulnerable” throughout early assessments and no one was dismounting to discover because of this. The event group rapidly readjusted, however then discovered they’d made Buggies too weak. Within the playtests that adopted, no one used Buggies in any respect. “You get into these tug-of-wars with steadiness that was actually fairly difficult,” provides Parker.
Early entry improvement is about unearthing “identifiable and actionable issues”
Early entry is a blessing and a curse when preventing these battles. Vazquez says the extra time you spend in early entry, the extra suggestions you obtain. That may be extremely helpful, however as manufacturing gathers tempo, and an increasing number of methods come on-line, it could additionally develop into overwhelming.
That is why it is important to be intentional when introducing new options to gamers—even whenever you’re in the midst of that early entry course of. “That is the steadiness we have now to search out. When is a function full and prepared sufficient that we really feel getting it into gamers arms might be priceless and nonetheless really feel like a whole expertise for them, however is not so completed that there is not room for the group to offer their suggestions and put their stamp on it?” Vazquez provides.
“The Buggie is a extremely good instance, as a result of initially we had a ton of concepts about all of the completely different Buggies we wished to do, however one of many first massive questions we requested ourselves was ‘what number of will we need to do earlier than we get them into gamers’ arms?’ The choice was made to do exactly two in addition to attainable and hand these over to gamers so we may get actually significant suggestions that may assist affect our future Buggies.”
Parker says separating helpful suggestions from the cacophony of noise is a “difficult course of.” He explains Obsidian has a comms group that helps the Grounded 2 group kind via the whole lot the group is saying. The studio additionally makes use of Discord bots to let followers vote on gameplay options and different additions. The event group then gathers as soon as per week to debate these requests.
“We form of reprocess [the feedback],” says Parker. “We have to perceive, when a participant finds one thing good or tough or no matter, whether or not that is a symptom of one other drawback. […] By addressing this factor, will we repair that? There’s quite a lot of philosophical dialog that goes into that.”
For Vazquez, early entry is about translating the emotions of gamers into “identifiable and actionable issues” the event group can deal with.
How lengthy will it really take to steadiness all of these equations is anyone’s guess. Parker explains he is uncertain whether or not there’s an “optimum” early entry timeframe, however says it is necessary for individuals to have dates and targets to shoot for to allow them to consider their progress. He does, nonetheless, affirm that he does not need Grounded 2 to nonetheless be kicking round in early entry in 5 years time, so anticipate a full launch earlier than 2030. You heard it right here first.
Sport Developer attended Gamescom 2025 by way of the Gamescom Media Ambassador Program, which lined flights and lodging.
