Obsidian Shifts to Grounded 2 After Space Limit

In the upcoming sequel Grounded 2 from Obsidian, a game centered on a group of teenagers shrunk to insect size within a sprawling backyard, a headline new feature is the ability to mount and ride bugs like steeds. This is a long-requested feature from the community, one that Obsidian has been eager to deliver.

In fact, this very addition is a primary motivation for creating a sequel. Simply put, the original Grounded couldn't support rideable bugs, or really any significant new content by the time of its completion. The studio wanted to take its game about being tiny and make it far grander in scale. A transition to Unreal Engine 5 was key to making this ambition possible.

"There are several reasons, but I'll highlight a few," explains executive producer Marcus Morgan when asked why Obsidian opted for a sequel over continuous updates to the first game. "First, we began Grounded 1 on the original Xbox One. We were hitting the limits of what we could physically fit into the game. To add more content, we would have faced a hard constraint on expanding the world, which would have broken the sense of seamless immersion we wanted to maintain."

Morgan notes that the team had told a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end in the first game and wanted to craft a separate, full narrative for the sequel. But ultimately, the desire for bug mounts—playfully dubbed "Buggies" by the team—was a major driver.

"We had already prototyped several creatures as mounts in Grounded 1. The challenge was that the original environments weren't designed for that style of gameplay. Mounts change traversal speed, which requires rethinking the distance between points of interest, how you navigate open land and interiors, and how you handle environmental hazards. None of that was fully considered initially, so we needed to build an entirely new, much larger world to let these features truly shine."

We started Grounded 1 on the original Xbox One. And we were running out of room to actually physically get things into the game. “

Obsidian isn't developing Grounded 2 alone. The studio is partnering with Eidos Montreal, the developer behind Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, for co-development. Morgan praises this collaboration highly, describing the teams' synergy as co-development "in the truest sense." He explains that Obsidian approached Xbox's central team for help finding a studio partner, and it was the second-party partnerships group who suggested connecting with Eidos. It turned out Eidos had many big fans of Grounded on staff—so many that their team helped select and refine the core premise and antagonists for Grounded 2's story, which convinced Obsidian they were the perfect partner.

For now, Grounded 2 is planned for an early access launch on Xbox and PC, with no current announcements for PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, or its successor. However, that doesn't mean these platforms are ruled out forever.

"I'm incredibly happy that Grounded 1 eventually reached all those platforms," says Morgan. "Our motto is 'ride together, survive together.' To me, this game is about playing with your friends regardless of where they play. Our goal is always to reach as many players as possible. We'll start with this launch and see where the future takes us."

While Morgan can't make firm commitments about Grounded 2's long-term future, he indicates Obsidian is considering a similar path to the first game: a few years in early access followed by a full 1.0 release. The team is avoiding hard constraints, maintaining a sincere commitment to the early access process of releasing content, gauging player feedback, and iterating based on that response.

"I definitely see Grounded 2 as being built to be far more expandable than we initially designed the first game to be. Whether we eventually cap that expansion will depend on how development progresses," he continues. "Our plans for future content will be guided by player engagement and, assuming our backend and tech can support it, we're prepared to grow with it. We'll navigate that journey together with our community."