Obsidian has given Eurogamer a good indication of how long Grounded 2 will be in early access for, and whether the game will come to PlayStation and other platforms besides Xbox and PC.
As with the original ant-sized backyard survival game, Grounded 2 will launch in early access, starting next week, from 29th July. But how long will it remain in open development for? “As long as we need to to get the game right,” executive producer Marcus Morgan told me.
“We don’t plan on being in early access forever,” he added, “but you definitely need the time. We were in early access for Grounded 1 for about two years and that gave us enough time to meaningfully take community feedback and actually adjust the game. Roughly that window again, but the appropriate amount of time to make it right.”
Grounded 2 will be a PC and Xbox game because Obsidian is a Microsoft-owned studio. But Grounded was also one of the series Microsoft experimented with offering on other platforms, on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Those versions launched last year and they seem to have performed well. Tonally speaking, Grounded is a perfect fit for Switch, and though there were performance issues on original Switch hardware, we are now of course in the era of the more powerful Switch 2.
Will Grounded 2 come to other platforms besides PC and Xbox, then? Marcus Morgan smiled when I asked him this, specifically about a PlayStation release, then said, “Can’t talk about that right now. But I will say that Grounded 1 is on all of those platforms so…” And then he smiled again.
Grounded 2 will bring a bevy of new ideas to the Grounded formula, notably insect mounts to ride around a much larger playing world in, that of Brookhollow Park, which will have ice dungeons and other varied biomes to explore. There are also deeper gameplay systems now and added nuance in combat, which lends the game much more staying power and interest over time.
I can tell you more about Grounded 2 when the embargo on early access impressions lifts on 29th July.