S&box was supposed to be the great spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod, the beloved physics sandbox that became a hugely popular creation suite. Built by Rust developer Facepunch Studios and published by Valve, Garry’s Mod gave players the tools to build everything from iconic game modes like Prop Hunt to outrageous, over-the-top Half-Life animations that live in the legacy of the internet. It currently boasts a 97% Steam review score from over 541,000 user ratings. S&box, by comparison, sits at just 47% positive, with only 3,600 respondents. Something has to change.
“I’m embarrassed by our reviews, I am ashamed,” creator Garry Newman writes in a lengthy post simply titled ‘Rethinking – We got it wrong.’ Newman says he’s been considering what S&box needs to be to succeed, admitting that “the platform is not well liked, it doesn’t have good retention.” The team at Facepunch has been absorbing the negative feedback, “taking it seriously and deciding what we should and shouldn’t be doing.”
Newman notes that the team has been more focused on the engine and the process of development, and that needs to change to concentrate on the players at the end of the pipeline. “That’s what we love, that’s what turns us on – but we’re not selling an engine, we’re selling a game.” He hopes that by shifting attention and introducing a wider range of player-first features, Facepunch will be able to make the sandbox game side stronger, “giving it parity with the Garry’s Mod version and surpassing it.”
To start with, Facepunch intends to make S&box free to play “towards the end of the year.” Newman acknowledges complaints about the fact there’s a paid game offering skins for sale. “We don’t need the entrance fee, we need players. Our intention always was to go free to play eventually, so fuck it, let’s just do it now.” Everyone who already owns the game will get a bundle of exclusive Steam inventory items as compensation, based on whether you got in at the $20 or $10 asking price.
The game’s signature ‘Citizen’ is going away, with standard human models getting a visual overhaul and continued improvements in the works. “We tried to make it work for about a year longer than we should have,” Newman concedes. “I believe this is a pragmatic and necessary next step. We now have to maintain just one player model. We don’t have to worry about models with four fingers and massive hands. All the weapons can be normal size. We can make normal-sized cars.”
Newman then discusses problems with discovery, stating that the team’s extensive work on its own backend sharing system “has mostly been a waste of time and resources” when it should instead have embraced the existing Steam Workshop. “My idea of a Netflix for games doesn’t work,” he continues. “It’s not feasible, it’s not how people discover games. You can’t land people on a menu of 60 games and say ‘have fun.’ That’s not a good experience. People want to find games through recommendations, through active multiplayer games, through watching streamers, influencers, and content creators.”
The new ‘playfund’ now operates on an approval basis, requiring creators to apply and be given the thumbs up. “The previous system was not working, it was encouraging people to make the wrong type of games, it was rewarding people botting,” Newman explains. “Our new policy isn’t set in stone, but generally we want to discourage clickers, idlers, slop, and UI-based games. We want to reward games like the ones we’ve seen recently in the Game Jam. We want to set the bar a bit higher than it has been set previously.”
Newman addresses frustrations with how S&box runs. He notes it has “consistently failed to meet a stable frame rate on lower-end hardware, and even on higher-end hardware the frame rates aren’t acceptable.” He acknowledges actions speak louder than words, but says the team is “making leaps and bounds week-on-week with a focus on lower-end hardware backed by pure, hard data.” Additionally, Facepunch is reducing the friction at startup to make it faster to get from launch into actually starting a game.
“I love seeing people create things, I love this engine, and I love working on it,” Newman concludes. “The negative reviews hurt me. The disdain for the project hurts me. I don’t like letting people down, especially when they’ve given me money to provide a service. I understand it all and we’re making some big, sweeping changes to try to improve things. Please bear with us while we make these changes.”