Grounded 2 is scurrying onto Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access on July 29, 2025. That announcement was a bit of a shock to the system, with developer Obsidian Entertainment having already released Avowed this year and with plans to launch The Outer Worlds 2 in October. But perhaps the biggest surprise here was the absence of PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2 logos on the Grounded 2 reveal trailer.
Grounded was one of the first titles from Xbox Game Studios to go multiplatform, part of a new initiative at Microsoft Gaming to make its output more widely accessible to players. Grounded made its way to PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch last April following four years of console exclusivity on Xbox, spurring the survival-adventure on to reach more than 25 million players worldwide. A big achievement, one I expected Obsidian would want to repeat should the studio ever break ground on a sequel.
Humble Beginnings
Speaking exclusively with GamesRadar+, Feargus Urquhart tells me that Grounded's success on platforms outside of the Xbox ecosystem didn't guarantee that its sequel would do the same. "It really is on a title-by-title basis," says Obsidian's studio head and CEO.
"The simplistic way of looking at Grounded 2 is that it's all about being in Game Preview and Early Access. It's about building the core. We got Grounded into the player's hands and then we could see what they liked and what they didn't like, and you don't want to complicate that by having tons of different SKUs."
When Urquhart refers to "SKUs" here, he really means platforms. For a video game that's all about quick iteration, Obsidian says there's benefit in keeping the scale smaller as its development teams build an early access roadmap and adapt it through ongoing conversations with the community.
"Adaptability and reacting to what players are asking for helps inform how we will evolve the game," says Marcus Morgan, executive producer of Grounded 2. "That was the spirit of everything we did throughout the development of Grounded, including the expansions to new platforms."
Morgan tells me that Obsidian had long wondered whether the original Grounded could ever exist outside of the Xbox ecosystem, as players spent years commenting that they "wanted to play this game with their friends on PlaySation and Nintendo" – but there were never any guarantees. "We were thinking, yeah, let's try to see if that works within the broader Xbox strategy to make that happen, to connect players together. That process played a role in how we thought about expanding Grounded."
"Even before we headed to new platforms, there was already a vision for where we wanted to take Grounded going forward"
I have spoken to multiple developers and decision makers at Obsidian, and they all maintain that a limited early access release for Grounded 2 has been the plan from the beginning. I asked Morgan whether the success of Grounded on PS5, PS4 and Switch – production was already underway on the sequel by the time it arrived – made Obsidian consider a wider day-one release for Grounded 2.
"Even before we headed to new platforms, there was already a vision for where we wanted to take Grounded going forward. So while the influx of new players certainly didn't hurt – and neither did making more money – we were already on the road long before that even happened. We knew what we wanted to do, and there was already excitement and support across the Xbox organization to go out and keep growing this franchise."
So, does that mean that Grounded 2 will eventually launch on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2? It could depend entirely on whether that's something players actually want. "You know, there are pros and cons of doing an early access game," Morgan continues," and one of those things is that you're releasing a game that is intentionally unfinished so you can build on it with the community."
"Starting with that as a baseline initially helped us make Grounded successful, which is the only reason we're here for Grounded 2. Our focus is just on what our players are enjoying, and what's satisfying is that we can do that in a sustainable manner," he says. "That's the approach that we'll take going forward, and we'll see what happens in the future – with regards to how it grows and how it expands."
Grounded 2 lands in Game Preview/Early Access for PC, Xbox Series X, and Game Pass on July 29, 2025.
