Grounded - shrunken kids first-person co-op survival game from Obsidian

[Alienman]

That perfect diversity though. 10/10.

 

[RickOmbo]

I sure understand why they don't want to compete with certain er pe ge anymore.

 

[slowtard]

That perfect diversity though. 10/10.

No wheelchairs!

 

[Bruma Hobo]

This is a game for children, why are you so butthurt? Let them make this for their Microsoft overlords, and if it somehow ends up becoming a huge hit and Obsidian stops making RPGs altogether, that wouldn't be a huge loss, right? Remember that they hadn't made a single good RPG in almost 10 years. I'm sure passionate people (like I hope Sawyer is) would then immediately resign, while the millennial danger hair leeches would obviously stay in trying to corrupt their new target audience. That would be a win-win scenario for us.

 

[Jenkem]

For me, it's the McChicken. The best fast food sandwich. I even ask for extra McChicken sauce packets and the staff is so friendly and more than willing to oblige.

One time I asked for McChicken sauce packets and they gave me three. I said, "Wow, three for free!" and the nice friendly McDonald's worker laughed and said, "I'm going to call you 3-for-free!".

Now the staff greets me with "hey it's 3-for-free!" and ALWAYS give me three packets. It's such a fun and cool atmosphere at my local McDonald's restaurant, I go there at least 3 times a week for lunch and a large iced coffee with milk instead of cream, 1-2 times for breakfast on the weekend, and maybe once for dinner when I'm in a rush but want a great meal that is affordable, fast, and can match my daily nutritional needs.

I even dip my fries in McChicken sauce, it's delicious! What a great restaurant.

 

[Junmarko]

People disagreeing with me: Other than a Souls-like or a roguelite, what else is trendy? Aside from just plain open world games.

Are you really not aware of the whole battle royale thing?

That's like saying "are you not aware of the whole MMORPG thing", as if anything lasted against WoW's slow cash-cow burn over the last decade and a half.

Thing is, new online games (Battle Royale/crafting/survival etc) don't seem to have the same long-term goals as MMOs ever did, they are quicker, much shorter lived cash grabs - more tedious to witness as they paint a really uncertain future for a studio. The whole f2p + micro-transaction model they adopt is just disturbing too, when you consider they now aim for a much younger audience and have gambling style methods.

 

[Aemar]

https://grounded.obsidian.net

Spoiler

It's live:

 

[soulburner]

So... if this truly is a small project and Obsidian is still working on a "true" RPG, I'm completely fine with it. Not my kind of game, but it looks cool enough to attract an audience.

They just released The Outer Worlds, announcing a new big game never happens.

 

[Haba]

IHaveHugeNick hey dude, have you seen this game yet! They are killing it!

 

[Comte]

This is a game for children, why are you so butthurt? Let them make this for their Microsoft overlords, and if it somehow ends up becoming a huge hit and Obsidian stops making RPGs altogether, that wouldn't be a huge loss, right? Remember that they hadn't made a single good RPG in almost 10 years. I'm sure passionate people (like I hope Sawyer is) would then immediately resign, while the millennial danger hair leeches would obviously stay in trying to corrupt their new target audience. That would be a win-win scenario for us.

Nice try Sawyer

 

[Mazisky]

Well, did you notice the interview during the event? Sawyer just said something like "i remember that we still make RPGs and there is something working in progress", so it's clearly being forced in this crap he doesn't even care.

 

[Jenkem]

The funny thing is this game will probably have deeper mechanics than The Outer Worlds.

 

[Lichtbringer]

The giant hands on the kids freak me out. Get it together, Obsidian character modelers.

'Edward Penisthumbs' would have been a better title. A missed opportunity.

 

[Flou]

Seriously can we nuke this thread, I don't even want to be reminded that this thing exists.

It sounds like you don't want to be an owner anymore. Maybe they were right taking away that Obsidian tag from you.

 

[Jimmious]

This is in the RPG Discussion because it's in the Obsidian subforum eh? Maybe Developer subforums should be genre independent

 

[d1nolore]

Honey I Shrunk Obsidian.

 

[Reinhardt]

Will it be first obsidian's good game?

 

[Jimmious]

Why disagree Infinitron ? Would you say that Divinity: Dragon Commander for example was an RPG? But it was a Larian game
Also Bethesda's games are hardly RPGs anymore, take Fallout 76 for example

 

[Infinitron]

I'm going to move this thread eventually. I'm keeping it here for a while because otherwise people who don't read General Gaming will keep bumping the Obsidian General Discussion Thread ("Hey wtf why is nobody talking about this decline?!").

 

[Flou]

Imagine if they had 12 people working on a hardcore RPG. Of course the ROI wouldn't be as good, can't have that now, can we?

I can imagine one of those multiple teams working on a hardcore RPG, especially when you have both Adler and Sawyer leading a project. I doubt Josh's non-violent game is Sims with more narrative.

 

[Flou]

I'm going to move this thread eventually. I'm keeping it here for a while because otherwise people who don't read General Gaming will keep bumping the Obsidian General Discussion Thread ("Hey wtf why is nobody talking about this decline?!").

Why though? Why not have all the games the company makes under the same forum? Why complicate things? Is this thread giving a severe rash to people and are they planning on taking Codex to the court because of it?

 

[Flou]

My God... I wasn't really expecting Sawyer's Dream Project (but it would've been a nice surprise), the historical turn-based rpg inspired by Darklands here, but this is really something else. I don't even know how to express my disappointment.
I don't even know if it's Obsidian's fault or Microsoft's, but who the fuck thought this was going to be a good idea? Obsidian has always made rpgs and everytime they strayed from that they screwed up big time, or even just the more "action" parts of their actual rpgs have always been bad or, at best, just mediocre.

And btw, wtf is going on with MS? I mean, you buy Ninja Theory, a studio that was successful for making Hellblade, a single-player and very narrative-focused experience that also explored unusual themes (protagonist's psychosis) -> first game after acquisition: a generic multiplayer shooter no one asked for.
Then Obsidian, known for rpgs with choices, multiple endings, sometimes multiple approaches and interesting and deep systems (not always, mind you, but NV, MotB and others had them) -> first game announced after MS buyout: a generic survival game no one wanted.
Maybe it's not Microsoft that pushed for those games, but still, if they want to gain back some trust this is not the right way. Which is kind of a shame because some of their other moves were going in the correct direction: Halo on PC, announcement of AoE4 (a relatively niche game by today standards and a PC exclusive ffs), bringing their games on Steam, the GamePass which I don't like too much because I prefer actually having games and replaying them any time I want but still offers a lot of stuff for a very competitive price. But then they always find some way to fuck up.

Well, that's the thing. Both Bleeding Edge and Grounded were started before Microsoft bought the companies. It would have been the stupidest thing for MS to do and go kill both of these projects based on what kinda games people are expecting from the companies. Do you think those people involved with the projects would have stayed and welcomed their new corporate overlords with open arms? You want to keep the talent at the companies you bought. In one of the interviews Atadero says, it's mostly seniors from Deadfire team working on this. That means the people involved have been at the company for a long time and most likely been working with Pillars franchise for more than enough. Passion project like this is actually good for the morale. At least you can't call this project soulless, when the people involved are actually very passionate about it which might not have been the case with Deadfire.

The interviews with Roby and Adam don't make it sound like it's just about survival without any plot or depth. There's still story elements, characters are fleshed out and they are even trying to make a faction system in there. It's not a hardcore rpg, that's for sure but it's still interesting to see what they can do with the survival genre with all those additions to that genre (if you play any other games than just crpgs).

Keep in mind this is just one of the multiple projects at Obsidian:

-The Outer Worlds DLC (saw a LinkedIn profile, which had some sound guy working on it for about a month from october to november, now he got moved to some new project)
-Parker's project aka the AAA rpg
-Brandon Adler's project
-Matthew Perez's project
-Josh's project

So, yeah. Maybe people should stop acting like this is the end of the world/Obsidian. They made South Park and after that did Pillars of Eternity. They did Pathfinder: Card Game but did Tyranny and Deadfire and then The Outer Worlds which will be followed by Grounded. If Microsoft and Feargus now allow teams of 14(?) people to work on such passion projects that gives hope that you might see more passionate CRPGs from the company in the future. They aren't only looking for that slamdunk.

 

[vortex]

You forgot Feargus as game director will have his own RPG.

 

[overly excitable young man]

Why is this in GRPG?
Obsidian is no RPG developer.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Keep in mind this is just one of the multiple projects at Obsidian:

-The Outer Worlds DLC (saw a LinkedIn profile, which had some sound guy working on it for about a month from october to november, now he got moved to some new project)
-Parker's project aka the AAA rpg
-Brandon Adler's project
-Matthew Perez's project
-Josh's project

I guess they need to make as many games as possible until Parker's AAA RPG bombs and Microsoft dissolves the whole company.