Obsidian has arguably been Xbox’s premier studio. With Pentiment, The Outer Worlds, and Avowed, the team has consistently delivered effective results, and the recent release of Grounded 2 is further solidifying their status.

During Tokyo Game Show 2025, Marcus Morgan (VP of Operations and Executive Producer) and Chris Parker (Game Director) of Grounded 2 sat down with us to talk about all things buggy about the game. From its early access launch to the invaluable feedback from the players, the game is making a case for community-led updates and utmost transparency with the community.

Grounded 2 Interview

Open Access Excitement

Obsidian’s Grounded 2 opened Early Access to massive excitement, and as the studio saw the rush of players and community feedback, it dawned on them that this was simply the true beginning of the sequel’s live development cycle.

“We announced in less than two weeks, we had three million people already playing around in studio, and getting a lot of really, really great feedback, it’s incredible, that’s the best part, that’s the part that brings the most joy,” Morgan said, expressing how the team shifted from worry before release to a recharged feeling after launch.

Optimization and Shared Worlds

And as with most launches these days, performance and stability are almost as important as gameplay itself. Both of these became immediate priorities for the team as the launch revealed platform and frame rate issues. The team worked on expanding performance options and offering toggles that trade visual fidelity for frame rate, such as “actually turning off the Lumen mining system… they get a ton of frames back,” so players on a variety of rigs can customize their experience even further. The mantra was to prioritize quick fixes and technical tuning, while larger content requests were triaged and scheduled with transparency.

Beyond content and tuning, Obsidian is focused on broader platform reach and optimization. The team intentionally adopts a stylized art direction that simplifies asset complexity and enhances performance across devices. At the same time, engineering partners focus on platform-specific optimization, which is especially crucial for handheld devices like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally.

Grounded 2 brings back the four-player shared-world design that made the original popular. Parker emphasized the intimacy of playing co-op with a small group, saying that “for right now I think we’ll stick with shared worlds… There’s a level of intimacy that gets built within the Grounded community in the way that four players working together on their space.”

That design choice keeps the game focused on cooperative building, exploration, and storytelling among friends. At the same time, the team leaves the door open to future modding or private-server solutions if needed.

Importance of Community Input

One of the sequel’s most talked-about systems, buggy mounts and progression, emphasizes Obsidian’s community-first approach. Early data revealed that if players had already claimed a mount, the incentive to get another one was not as strong. Instead of forcing a solution, the team plans to evolve buggy progression with the help of community input.

“I’m really excited about buggy progression… we’re still working through, even if we wanted to really sincerely explore that with the community, like what does that buggy progression system look like?… I’m excited to see where it adds up and where the community takes it,” Morgan said.

This approach shapes grounded 2’s feedback pipeline, as weekly triage meetings bring together designers, community managers, producers, and customer service to “peel back the layers” of issues, determine whether an issue is a bug or a tuning problem, and prioritize accordingly.

The devs also watch streams and host play sessions to observe player behavior directly. “Sometimes we just don’t understand… so yeah, we’ll just go ask the community then if we don’t understand it,” Morgan added.

Grounded 2’s Early Access phase reflects a development cadence built on transparency, constant communication, and delivery. There’s always the need to prioritize the fixes that matter now, communicate why some of the players’ requests will take time, and let player testing influence the evolution of core systems.

For players, this can only mean that their presence and involvement are valued, and their playtime is being rewarded with a steady flow of performance updates, quality-of-life improvements, and more, resulting in a game that both parties are happy with.

Grounded 2 Early Access is now available on Xbox Series and PC.