Obsidian Entertainment is committed to pursuing another journey through early access. We already covered why the studio is heading back into Game Preview in the second part of our bite-sized preview of Grounded 2, with the development team keen to work with the community to shape the future of this cooperative survival adventure, but how exactly will the team approach updates?
With a far larger playspace to explore, mounts impacting the way you build, traverse, and fight across the open world with your friends, and a suite of quality-of-life improvements to core crafting and survival systems, there are plenty of areas for Obsidian to target as it considers the Grounded 2 early access roadmap. Speaking with game director Chris Parker, he tells me that the studio has identified narrative as a core focus moving forward.
Looking Ahead
"We have a lot of learnings on how to craft a survival experience that is fun and interesting, but also how we could add some narrative flair to that," Parker says, speaking to the challenge the original Grounded team encountered when trying to merge Obsidian's legacy as an RPG creator with the genre trappings of survival games. "I think the Grounded 1 team always wished – and to be clear, I don't think that they were unhappy with what was there, the team was excited about it – but they always wished they could have gone deeper with the narrative and developed it more."
"So, that was something we wanted to establish right from the beginning," says Parker. "The way that we were able to develop Grounded 2, because we have the foundational base that we built with Grounded, means that we are able to take on these sorts of challenges earlier. Whereas with the first game, the team was really figuring out how to make the survival mechanics feel really awesome."
"We'll have act one ready for the early access launch, which will be its own self-contained chapter"
Grounded 2 is set two years after the events of the original game. Pete, Max, Willow, and Hoops return as four playable characters, teenagers who are once again shrunk to the size of insects after an explosion at Brookhollow Park ruins an unveiling ceremony of a statue in their honor.
Obsidian says that the whole story won't be there from day one – just enough to start uncovering mysteries – but promises that story will be a bigger part of updates moving forward. "Grounded 2 is a great opportunity to hit the narrative right out of the gate," says producer Miles Winzeler.
"We'll have act one ready for the early access launch, which will be its own self-contained chapter. That can help us inform how we handle larger updates down the line, and define how we move between Point A and Point B of both the gameplay and narrative changes at each beat."
Speaking of beats on the roadmap, Parker says Obsidian learned a lot of lessons through the original Grounded in early access, and is making changes to the way it deploys updates. "When we started with Grounded 1 in early access, we were trying to do almost monthly updates. That was a hassle and it didn't work. It didn't make the community happy and it didn't make the team happy. So we are looking at longer, meatier updates that are in the four to five month range."
We want to be able to deliver big chunks of content, just like we were doing later on in Grounded. Where the team was getting out a huge chunk of whatever area of the yard, with all-new creatures, armor, new equipment, new mechanics, or whatever it might have been. With Grounded 2, we want to bring all of these pieces into a content update so that the community can experience an entire chunk of the park and provide feedback on it as a whole piece of the game, which is really important to us."
Obsidian is yet to release the full Grounded 2 early access roadmap, although the studio has committed to being more transparent about its plans for the sequel. We're expecting to learn more on that front on July 29 – when Grounded 2 lands in Game Preview/Early Access for PC, Xbox Series X, and Game Pass.
Grounded 2 lands in Game Preview/Early Access for PC, Xbox Series X, and Game Pass on July 29, 2025.
