Obsidian talks Grounded 2's pond update, PS5 release, and more
Hi there! My Summer Game Fest coverage is continuing today, but this newsletter will be a little different. To close the week, I'm mostly focusing on a discussion I had with Chris Parker and Marcus Morgan, game director and executive producer at Obsidian Entertainment respectively, who chatted with me about the team's early access survival game Grounded 2.
Another big update is on the way, and it's expanding to a new platform, so there's a lot to go over. Outside of this interview, there are a couple of additional previews of interest that I've attached, though I'll note we're still not at the end!
If you didn't seen my previous Summer Game Fest-focused newsletters, be sure to check them out, as I covered games like Alien: Isolation 2 and Onimusha: Way of the Sword, as well as Control Resonant and The Lost Wild.
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Expanding the park to PlayStation players
Grounded 2 was already significantly bigger than its predecessor when it launched in early access on Xbox and PC last July, and it's getting even bigger in a couple of months with the Into the Abyss update, which adds new biomes for the shrunken teenagers to explore, including a toxic bayou and a massive pond.
There's also new creatures to discover, new weapons and armor, and a new Buggy (a tameable bug) with the Toe-biter, which can be used to aid underwater exploration. Oh, and the game is also launching on PlayStation 5 the same day, with full cross-progression and cross-play as long as users on Sony consoles log into an Xbox account.
Morgan notes that this is significantly faster than with the first game, which didn't arrive on PlayStation until well after it had fully released. Grounded 2's 1.0 launch is still a ways off, but the team has been able to work with Sony to arrange an early access launch, something that isn't common on PlayStation.
"I think it taught us a lot from a tech perspective of what we needed to do to make sure stuff around cross-play and multiplayer connectivity [works], that's where a big hurdle is to make sure all of the entitlements work correctly, all of the saving systems, all of the cross-play works correctly," Morgan says.
"We're really excited that Sony was willing to work with us to be able to bring that experience because we love making games in that way."
I asked if there were plans for a Nintendo Switch 2 release, and while there's no official comment at the moment, players with Nintendo's latest hybrid console shouldn't give up hope.
"We always want our games to be in the hands of as many people as possible," Morgan says. "Obviously, for Grounded 1, we brought that to the original Switch. But right now, we're focused on PlayStation. We'll see what happens."
The underwater setting is exciting, and the team wants it to feel like a big leap up compared to the last pond outing the shrunked kids took in the first game.
"We added a dodge in Grounded 2, in terms of combat on land. And so we've actually brought that over to underwater combat too, where you can dodge underwater," Morgan explains. "And there's a bunch of other cool, interesting things we're trying to do to make sure that we give a little more parity between the experience that you have on land with the experience underwater."
Naturally, the underwater setting brings Unknown Worlds' Subnautica 2 to mind. The underwater survival game launched in early access in May, and has exploded in popularity, with over 4 million copies sold and millions of additional players via Xbox Game Pass. I asked Parker and Morgan if the team has been looking at Subnautica 2 for inspiration.
"To be perfectly honest, we just don't have time to," says Parker, explaining that the team is absolutely looking forward to checking out Subnautica 2's ideas to see what could work, but that for the time being, the studio has simply been too busy with its already-planned updates.
"We always want to make sure that even if we do get inspired by something, we're making sure it's unique to the Grounded experience. It's not just about being underwater. Like, if you want just that, then Subnautica is an awesome game for that. But it's about being small and underwater, and then what does that mean for our gameplay mechanics?" Morgan says, adding that the original Subnautica and The Forest were significant inspirations for the first Grounded years ago, and that he hopes Unknown Worlds is inspired by playing Grounded 2.
The original Grounded was initially a small spin-off project for Obsidian, being built by barely more than a dozen people. After it exploded in popularity, the sequel naturally has a bigger in-house team (though still small compared to other Obsidian titles like Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2) in addition to co-development work done by Eidos-Montréal.
I asked what that process has been like, and if there have been any unexpected benefits or challenges from growing a bit and having external partners so heavily involved in the development process.
"I think that it's actually gone really, really well, mainly because we started off more gradually. One thing that we talked about a lot was that we didn't want to go from like, zero to 100 with the team," Morgan says, with Parker interjecting that that the team they started with at Eidos-Montréal was even smaller than the first Grounded's dev team.
"They were kind of part of the community as well," Morgan adds. "They were playing Grounded. They were really inspired by it. So it was almost like the professional version of early access."
Parker adds that "you don't ever really know" how a partnership is going to go, but that it's been smooth overall.
"Of course, we had some struggles with Eidos, but they were all relatively minor," Parker says. "And over time, they're fewer and farther between. Rarely do we ever have any tug-of-wars over features or anything like that anymore."
To close our discussion, Morgan tells of his ire towards a "mutiny" that happened on the team (firmly in jest) as he was pushing for the new update to be called the "Drownded update."
"Everyone was like, 'Oh, that doesn't localize well. Oh, that's stupid, not a word.' Well, you know what? They're all wrong and Drownded would have been way cooler."
The Into the Abyss update — sorry Morgan, the Drownded update — and the PlayStation 5 launch are both set for Aug. 11, 2026.
"At least we're not in September," Morgan says with a laugh.
Join Us is janky, but I need to see more
Another of the many, many games I checked out over Summer Game Fest was Join Us, a new title from the tiny team at Wolf Haus Games. Join Us is firmly focused on dark comedy, tasking players (anywhere from one to four in co-op) with running a successful cult. That means recruiting new members, evading or obliterating police and rivals, and preparing for the betentacled end of the world.
My 20-or-so minute demo opens with the founding of my cult. That means picking a naming schema (I chose Roman-style names, of course), picking a color pattern (purple on green!) and a sigil (don't fear the reaper).
After a brief tutorial, I was unleashed on a small town and set to work building up my followers. Join Us allows you to bring followers along for backup, and you can instantly swap between members of your cult to change up your outings. Despite having a starting character, getting into a gunfight can easily mean losing them, as there's also a permadeath system.
While I had fun shooting down a police helicopter and jankily driving around hijacked cars (they handle in a way reminiscent of the Mako in Mass Effect) I'm far more curious about the deeper systems Join Us has for recruiting followers and actually maintaining the cult, as they could help separate it from other co-op survival-esque titles.
Unfortunately, a lot of said systems weren't available for me to play around with during this demo, given my limited time hands-on. I'll be curious to see how the game grows when it launches in March 2027 on Xbox, PC, and PS5.
Stuntman: Hollywood is just plain fun
One of the biggest surprises (in that it's a series I never thought would get a new entry) from Summer Game Fest season was Stuntman: Hollywood, a revival of the Stuntman series that sees players perform dangerous stunts under demands from a frantic director.
Developed by Saber Interactive, Stuntman: Hollywood brings one major twist to the formula, as instead of filing the serial numbers off of projects to avoid licensing, this entry uses real movies from Universal Pictures' catalog. That means using cars from The Fast and the Furious one moment, while driving the DeLorean from Back to the Future the next.
Importantly, Stuntman: Hollywood is difficult, but not frustrating. It's hard to land the perfect trick weaving between cars or nailing the timing on a jump, but it's rewarding and at no point was I annoyed, even when a failed drift sent me careening into some poor extras.
There's no release date at the moment, but when Stuntman: Hollywood arrives, it'll be available on Xbox, PC, and PS5.
