Tiny people in a big world survival game Grounded has got a heck of an update on the way: Make It and Break It will hit on November 13th, bringing in a creative mode called Playgrounds that lets you make custom game maps and modes using tools that seem pretty dang close to whatever the development team is using themselves.
The update will come complete with a set of “gizmos and gadgets” that let you build mechanics for your custom game spaces, like spawning and sounds. It’ll also include the ability for players to more easily save and share those creations with others, enabling entirely new gameplay modes for Grounded—racing, arena battles, whatever—alongside new survival experiences more adjacent to the core.
The update was made with the express goal of letting people extend the amount of playtime they can get from Grounded once the team at Obsidian inevitably has to move on.
“Giving people the opportunity to extend the lifetime of the games they enjoy is always really cool, which was very important to us. We’ve always wanted to see what the community can make with these tools,” said game director Adam Brennecke in an interview with Xbox’s blog.
“We focused on creating a cool narrative experience for 1.0, and continued to add quality of life updates, more variety, and cool features,” said Brennecke. “We got to a point where the [backyard] felt really fleshed out, we were happy with all of the content in-game, and this felt like the next thing to do.”
Given the description from Obsidian, the tools themselves appear to be very robust, including logic switches and the like to draw on for your gameplay designs. You’ll also have access to “almost every object included in the yard” with “no limit to the number of objects you can place” which sounds like a delicious invitation to create some real game-shattering new modes. Brennecke himself says that he’s excited to see if people make something “even be better than our own Grounded experience!”
For the full interview with Obsidian’s Adam Brennecke, see Xbox’s blog. For more on getting into the playtest ahead of release, see Obsidian’s website.