Obsidian expands Grounded 2’s miniaturized world thanks to the community

For Xbox and PC gamers, today arrived one of three new titles from Obsidian Entertainment for this year: Grounded 2. Building on what was presented in the first title released in 2020, the studio expands many of the elements of this survival game where our characters are miniaturized, delivering new systems, a larger world to explore, and mechanics that were not possible to implement in the original version.

Ahead of the game’s release, we had an interview with Miles Winzeler, producer, and Aarik Dorobiala, senior community manager, to learn more about how Obsidian worked hand-in-hand with its community to develop the game.

The great little community behind Grounded

It’s no secret that when Grounded was released in 2020, it was an Early Access experience, so Obsidian Entertainment worked closely with the fans who were joining the game until it delivered its final version in September 2022. By that time, the game had already grown considerably, but they still had many requests from the community to continue expanding it, with more than 900 suggestions, according to Dorobiala.

“For Grounded 1, I have a spreadsheet of suggestions from the community, and we utilized our Discord server to get community feedback and suggestions. When that reached 35 upvotes, I put it on the spreadsheet. I had over 900 suggestions on that spreadsheet, varying from accessibility features, new biomes, new bugs, and just everything that you could think of,” Dorobiala said. “When we ran out of room for Grounded 1, the Grounded 2 team was like, ‘Hey, can we get that spreadsheet?’ And I sent that over and talked to them about most things the community wants that they would love to have on Grounded 2.”

Within this feedback were found the elements that helped shape the world that players will be able to traverse in Grounded 2. Grounded 1’s backyard wasn’t big enough for what was asked for, so the studio had to think of something more ambitious: Brookhollow Park. This new setting not only allowed for the inclusion of mounts called buggies but also offered a reason to implement new biomes.

“The park as a setting is very inspired by community feedback in terms of how we create a space that is compatible with a bunch of different ideas that can kind of spin a lot of wish list items without it being kind of too confusing from a logistics narrative standpoint because the park has got all these great natural spaces,” Winzeler commented.

“That’ll feel kind of familiar, like the backyard survival pieces, but then you’ve got the opportunity for man-made spaces like the ice cream cart. The icy biome is such a wishlist item in and of itself. I think having the park means when the game starts at full size, we know what things are going on there. What kind of stories can we tell? What kind of spaces can you go into? It felt like this basic idea had so many possibilities tied to it.”

The park is divided into several sections, some of which will initially be off-limits to players. These will be unlocked as the development of the title progresses. Although there is already a roadmap planned, from Obsidian they ask for patience. “Using the park as a setting is great because it has a lot of possibilities for things that can go into it. So, I think there’s a part of us that we don’t want to, you know, commit to specific areas until we kind of hear how people are receiving the first ones. We have our big picture ideas of what we want to do with the park and areas that would be really cool to see there,” Winzeler commented.

“It is more of a loose framework we’re kind of married to; we’re going to have it there for sure. But we will have a road map that we’ll release that shows things that we planned and things that are coming up.”

In the meantime, players can already start playing Grounded 2, starting today on Xbox Series X|S and PC.

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