Facepunch’s Garry Newman says S&box will go free to play by the end of the year

Facepunch Studios founder Garry Newman has announced a major overhaul of S&box, including a move to free to play “towards the end of the year,” according to Rock Paper Shotgun. Newman posted the plan on Steam and on the game’s website.

Facepunch, which also makes Garry’s Mod and Rust, released S&box earlier this year. The product combines an open source game development platform with a spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod. Rock Paper Shotgun reports that it has received mixed reviews, and that low-quality AI-generated games filled the platform soon after launch.

In the post, Newman said the platform isn’t well liked and doesn’t keep players coming back. “I’m embarrassed by our reviews, I am ashamed,” he wrote. He said the studio had concentrated on the engine and the experience of making games with it, even though what it actually sells is a game. Facepunch now plans to shift its attention to players. Part of that work is bringing the built-in Sandbox Game up to par with Garry’s Mod and then beyond it, with more NPCs, vehicles, better multiplayer, and support for addons and customization.

Newman also said the platform’s approach to curating user-created games was a mistake. “My idea of a Netflix for games doesn’t work,” he wrote. He explained that players find games through recommendations, active multiplayer sessions and content creators, not by browsing a menu of dozens of titles. He added that the platform should aim to have the best and most popular games rather than the largest number. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, he said AI-generated submissions had made it much harder to bring good games to the top.

Other changes include swapping the cartoony “citizen” character models for standard human models. Newman said Facepunch always planned to make S&box free to play eventually. The studio is doing it now because it considers growing the player base more important than charging for the game on top of selling skins in-game. Everyone who already bought the game will automatically receive exclusive Steam inventory items, and people who paid $20 will get more than those who paid $10.