Those reactions have shaped a number of aspects of Grounded’s development since the start of its early access period. Having now been in it for two years, Brennecke praises the idea of early access, saying that “the most powerful thing in game development” is getting player reactions to a thing a developer has made. While Brennecke says Xbox’s support has been critical to Grounded’s success, perhaps an even more integral element was the game’s community. Leaving room for smaller projects like Grounded means they can pursue those, leading to more experimental ideals and an overall improvement in studio knowledge and skill. Brennecke echoes a sentiment to us that we also heard from Obsidian studio head Feargus Urquhart and Pentiment director Josh Sawyer: sometimes, people working on large teams and projects need creative outlets.
Xbox has also been a big help in ensuring that Obsidian could continue to develop more small projects alongside its big swings, like Grounded and the just-announced Pentiment.
#Obsidian grounded plus#
“There's no way that we would've gotten to 10 million plus players without Xbox's support and their help along the way,” Brennecke says. The visibility push from Xbox didn’t hurt either, with the added benefit of Game Pass meaning Grounded had a low barrier to entry. And Xbox acquired Obsidian during Grounded’s development, offering Obsidian tools and resources they wouldn’t have otherwise had access to, like a user research group to help them develop accessibility features such as arachnophobia mode. Their game has launched in early access to a level of success that surprised even Brennecke.
They’ve grown from 12 to 20 members, though Brennecke says it’s still the smallest team he’s ever worked on. But he and a handful of others at Obsidian wanted to try something different: a survival game that still embraced the studio’s RPG storytelling background.Ī lot has changed for that small internal team since they started brainstorming the game that would become Grounded. Having worked on a number of projects from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 as a programmer all the way to executive producer on Pillars of Eternity, by the time Deadfire was wrapping, he’d naturally had a lot of experience with RPGs. IGN spoke with game director Adam Brennecke, who’s been with Obsidian for 18 years now – almost since the studio’s inception.
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