Grounded
Obsidian Entertainment · 2022 · Survival / sandbox co-op
Did the studio keep supporting this game after launch? This page is the evidence.A textbook early-access stewardship arc: Obsidian iterated on Grounded with its community for years, delivered every major promised update plus PlayStation and Switch ports with crossplay, then closed content with a free finale while maintenance patches kept landing into 2025. The main blemish is the rushed monthly update cadence the studio later disowned.
01Score breakdown
Five categories, 20 points each, 100 total. Full method on the methodology page.
02The evidence
Launched into Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access on July 28, 2020 with monthly updates promised, Grounded grew for two years under community feedback before the well-received 1.0 release on September 27, 2022. Post-launch brought major updates 1.1 through 1.3 including the Playgrounds creator mode, and the final content update 1.4 (Fully Yoked) arrived April 16, 2024 alongside PS4, PS5, and Switch ports with full crossplay. Maintenance patches 1.4.1 through 1.4.7 continued into 2025 even after content ended, and the sequel was announced June 2025 with Grounded 2 entering Game Preview on July 29, 2025.
- Two years of early-access development visibly shaped the game through player feedback, with community requests like photo mode, Arachnophobia Safe Mode, auto-collect arrows, and craft-many options actually implemented.
- Major updates 1.1 through 1.4 all shipped as promised, ending with a free final content update alongside PS and Switch ports with full crossplay.
- Maintenance did not stop when content did: patches 1.4.1 through 1.4.7 kept fixing regressions and improving performance into 2025.
- The minuses: the early monthly update cadence was unsustainable and later disowned by the director, and 1.0 launch carried real co-op and collision bugs.
03Sources
04Audit record
- Launch date
- Sep 27, 2022
- Evidence coverage through
- Oct 12, 2026
- Methodology
- v1.0
- Audit confidence
- Medium
- Why this confidence
- Evidence is strong on community-driven development, the full update sequence from Early Access through 1.4, and continued maintenance patches, but per-update patch-note verification and platform-specific support histories were not individually inspected.
- Score band
- Excellent (Tier A)