Obsidian unlikely to put big story RPGs into early access, Grounded 2 lead says

At Summer Game Fest 2026, Chris Parker, game director for Grounded 2, said letting players in early can work in some instances but not for sprawling role-playing adventures. He pointed to Obsidian's early relationship with players on Pillars of Eternity, "which was not an early access game per se, it was a Kickstarter, but we were constantly updating the community and letting them know about stuff." Parker admitted early access "worked out amazingly well" for the first Grounded, but added that "when you're making a huge, super crunchy story-based RPG, I think that's probably pretty hard to put into early access." He called Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 an outlier—"Baldur's Gate 3 seems to have done it pretty well, so maybe there's room for that"—and said Obsidian evaluates the approach on a game-by-game basis.

For Grounded 2, Parker believes the approach fits: the sequel became available for Xbox Series X/S and PC players in July last year, and PlayStation 5 fans can join in come August.

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