Obsidian has expressed a strong interest for game preservation to Eurogamer while talking about whether Grounded 2 will usurp and replace Grounded 1 when it arrives in early access at the end of July.
Speaking in an interview, executive producer Marcus Morgan told me: “We actually have this strong passion to ensure our games can stand the test of time and keep updating through history.” He pointed to the surprise patch Obsidian released for 10-year-old isometric role-playing game Pillars of Eternity, earlier this year, as proof. “There’s a strong desire on our side to make sure that our games are preserved,” he said.
“Now, are we going to be doing content and these story expansions to Grounded 1?” he added. “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.”
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Morgan’s comments reference a bigger problem games face where if their servers are taken offline, they effectively cease to exist. EA recently announced it would switch the Anthem servers off, for example, and when that happens, no one will be able to play the game. Anthem will, for all intents and purposes, disappear.
It’s become such a problem that an anti-closure movement has sprung up in response, called Stop Killing Games, and its petition has amassed hundreds of thousands, potentially more than a million, signatures of support. It seeks to ensure publishers leave their games in a playable state after official support is pulled.
Grounded theoretically falls into the at-risk category by being multiplayer, it being built on the idea of co-operative survival in a back garden world, as an inch-high teenager. But there’s a crucial difference that potentially future-proofs it.
Morgan explained: “One of the things that we did in terms of how we structured Grounded is multiplayer is done through peer-to-peer, which in first blush, feels antiquated versus dedicated servers. But we were able to blend that with shared worlds, and what that does is it allows you, effectively, a cloud save that you can share with your 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.
“And this is no commentary on the Stop Killing Games stuff or anything like that,” he added. “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 releases in early access on 29th July. The sequel introduces mounts and moves the action from a backyard world into a larger space called Brookhollow Park, introducing new biomes, deeper systems and gameplay with it. I’m currently playing the sequel but can’t say anything more until the day it comes out. Pop back then.