‘My biggest fear is the direct comparison to Grounded 1’: Grounded 2 executive producer opens up about the difficulty of following up an early access game with another early access game

Grounded 2 was announced at the Xbox Games Showcase over the weekend, and it’s releasing into early access next month—July 29, to be specific. Early access can be a real boon for games, as it enables developers to iterate with (hopefully) large-scale feedback toward a complete, as-good-as-it-can-be final release, but there are risks involved too, especially when you’re following up on a big hit.

“When you’re a sequel to a game that has completed early access, that had five years to iterate and grow, and then you’re a sequel in early access, that’s an incomplete game?” Obsidian’s Marcus Morgan said in an interview with PC Gamer. “I’ll be honest, my biggest fear is the comparison—the direct comparison—to Grounded 1.”

Players are likely to come into the new game with high expectations and assumptions about how things should be done, much of it driven by experiences with the original Grounded, which launched into early access in 2020 and went into full release in 2022. That makes early access for Grounded 2 “a little bit of a double-edged sword,” Morgan said, although Obsidian believes the benefit of feedback from players during development “far outweighs” the risks.

“As a studio, we are pretty conscious about what people—like many studios are—but we really, really, sincerely take it to heart of getting player feedback,” Morgan said.

Grounded was a near-immediate hit for Obsidian, but it was also very much a work-in-progress when it first launched. As PC Gamer’s Wes Fenlon noted in 2021 when he looked at the ups and downs of playing early access games, Grounded had a great vibe and intuitive building system in its early days, “but we ran through the game’s existing story in about an hour, and playing more after that seemed premature.”

Four years down the road, it’s one of Obsidian’s most popular games, with a “very positive” rating on Steam and thousands of concurrent players every day.

Comparisons are inevitable, yes, but Morgan hopes people will bear in mind that Grounded 1 needed time to cook, and Grounded 2 will, too.

“If you remember Grounded 1, you know where that game started and where it got to,” Morgan said. “You look at where we’re starting with Grounded 2, hopefully you’re as inspired as we are about where we will end up.”

Grounded 2 is available for wishlisting now on Steam.