Grounded 2’s Release Won’t Lead to Original Grounded Becoming Unplayable

With Grounded 2 coming out later this month, executive producer Marcus Morgan has said that developer Obsidian Entertainment will not be taking servers for the original Grounded down. In an interview with Eurogamer, Morgan has said that the studio wants to make sure that its games are preserved.

“We actually have this strong passion to ensure our games can stand the test of time and keep updating through history,” said Morgan. “There’s a strong desire on our side to make sure that our games are preserved.”

While he did note that the original Grounded won’t be getting any new updates that bring in new content to the survival crafting game, the title will still be updated to fix bugs. However, for players that might be interested in seeing how the story of Grounded continues, they will have to start playing the sequel.

“Now, are we going to be doing content and these story expansions to Grounded 1?” he continued. “No, that’s the continuation of Grounded 2. But even as recently as April we released our [update] 1.4.7 to Grounded 1, so there’s a maintenance and a desire that that game will always exist. So we’ll keep that up; it’s not going anywhere if people still want to play Grounded 1 as well.”

“But we are, in terms of where we’re moving the story, where we’re expanding things: if you want more Grounded, we’ll be more into Grounded 2 versus Grounded 1. We’re pushing things forward with Grounded 2.”

Morgan, explaining why the original Grounded isn’t at risk of being lost from having its servers taken down, said that the title was structured to make use of peer-to-peer connections for its multiplayer. While this is considered an older and antiquated way of doing things, he did note that, thanks to a combination of peer-to-peer multiplayer and shared worlds, players can make use of what is essentially a “cloud save” to play with their friends.

“So it gives that experience of being able to have a more dedicated server vibe, but it doesn’t have that same requirement of actually having servers,” he said.”

“And this is no commentary on the Stop Killing Games stuff or anything like that,” he added, referring to a consumer rights movement that has been gaining some ground in the EU and UK. “More to say it does establish [Grounded 1] so it can exist into the future a lot easier than if you’re on the other side, where you are more of a server-based game.”

Grounded 2 recently got a new trailer ahead of its early access launch. The trailer focuses on the game’s main story, and how Omniment—the company that was previously responsible for shrinking experiments—is once more returning.

Grounded 2 is coming to PC (via Steam and Microsoft Store) and Xbox Series X/S in the form of a Game Preview/Early Access release on July 29, and is priced at $29.99. The game will get continuous support through the form of regular updates for bug fixes as well as additional content as it gets closer to its full release. For more details, check out our feature exploring the differences between Grounded and Grounded 2.