The backyard survival hit Grounded is approaching the one-year mark of its Game Preview / Early Access. In the lead-up to this, developer Obsidian has revealed the plan from here on out is to provide fewer but much larger and more meaningful updates.
"We are approaching the one-year mark from the Game Preview/Early Access launch and we still have so much that we want to do for the game. Some of these larger features take time, and with a small team it's difficult to release content every month while balancing larger tasks that need to get done to finish the game. We will be looking at doing larger and slightly less frequent updates moving forward, which will allow us to make our updates more meaningful with more and better content.
"Our goal is to find the right balance of keeping the game fresh with new things while giving the team enough time to make quality features."
Right now, the team is hard at work on the next update (Version 0.10.0) - it's expected to be the largest one yet, and is currently on track to be released at the end of next month. The team is also skipping a May update to focus its efforts on this larger one.
This next big update will include more building pieces (curved walls, roof variations etc), the ability to flip building pieces and mirror them, giant food item changes, photo mode enhancements, the ability to sprint while climbing ladders and much more "big stuff" to come.
Are you still playing Grounded on your Xbox a year later? Leave a comment down below.
[source grounded.obsidian.net]
Comments 10
So does this ever get an actual release? Or is it just a sandbox for the devs to try things out?
@elpardo1984 we don’t know for sure but it’s only been out a year. I imagine it’ll have at least another year of development before a true release.
@xMightyMatt14x ah ok I’m new to the idea of a game getting years of open beta testing and getting designed around feedback. I know Minecraft did a similar thing though
an example of Xbox Game Studios burning money, because this game doesnt generate any income at all except for Steam sales?
the story hasn't been implemented since the initial launch of game preview 1 year ago
it will take a LOT of marketing to get people to play this
@magicismoney
@Senua do u want a screenshot of the steamcharts for Grounded or do u have that too?
@magicismoney FYI Sea of Thieves was released back in 2018.
I was wondering about this the other day, and whether or not it was close to a Version 1.0 release or abandoned. I guess it's neither, and it's really far away from 1.0 if it's only up to 0.10 now
Oh well I don't really care. I gave it the benefit of the doubt when it hit Game Pass and didn't dig it. I'll give it another shot when it gets "finished." But in the meantime, there are games like Drake Hollow and Dragon Quest Builders 2 - really excellent games that do what Grounded does, being really great combinations of survival and multiplayer and crafting and questing with really appealing art styles - that are finished already. This small team within Obsidian can take their time as far as I'm concerned...
Though on the other hand, if Obsidian is going to keep a small experimental team around to make weirder titles like this, it would be kind of odd to see them spend 3, 4 (or more) years on a single game concept actually. Figured you'd set aside a team like that to be more agile and prototype things quickly, pick a concept, then refine that and get a full version out asap. That way you could release a bunch of smaller games in-between the multi-year development RPGs. If these guys & gals take multiple years too, that'd just make less sense to me, I dunno.
@magicismoney if they're an Xbox studio, then they aren't "burning" money as they're funded by game pass.
Very impressed with what Obsidian has been able to achieve with this concept. There's still so much more they can do with it, so I think they're going with a more Mojang aproach than a Rare one regarding the updates.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...