Grounded 2 Update Schedule: Every Update and What's Next
Short version: Rot and Ruin is the newest Grounded 2 update. Obsidian posted its full 0.6.0 patch notes on Steam on Oct 20, 2026, with a section of "PTB to Live Fixes", 14 days after the public test build went up on Oct 6. Two Rot and Ruin patches have followed on Steam, 0.6.0.4 on Oct 28 and 0.6.0.5 on Nov 4 (as of Nov 5, 2026), and there's no date for the next update or for 1.0. Rot and Ruin came 70 days after Into the Abyss; gaps between updates so far have run 21 to 76 days, 56 on average.
The latest update: Rot and Ruin
Latest Grounded 2 post: Patch 0.6.0.5 has Been Released (Nov 4, 2026), the second Rot and Ruin patch. It says “Patch 0.6.0.5 is now available!” and is a list of bug fixes; it doesn’t mention the next update. The full “Rot and Ruin 0.6.0 Patch Notes”, including a section headed “PTB to Live Fixes”, are in the Oct 20, 2026 post. Anything newer? No newer post had been made as of our last check of Obsidian’s Steam news on Nov 5, 2026.
As of Nov 5, 2026, this is everything official about Rot and Ruin and what comes after it:
| Status | |
|---|---|
| Name | Rot and Ruin. In August Obsidian had asked players to vote on the name: “We have two amazing ideas but we need your help to decide the name of the next update” (Steam, Aug 25, 2026). |
| Public test build | Announced Oct 6, 2026 (test build post). |
| Full patch notes | Posted on Steam Oct 20, 2026, 14 days after the test build post. |
| Version number | 0.6.0, the same number the test build carried. |
| Next update | Not announced. |
| 1.0 release | Not announced. The Oct 20 post doesn’t mention 1.0. |
A note on the date: the Oct 20 post’s opening still says more is coming “when Rot and Ruin arrives in Grounded 2 this fall”, and nowhere does it say in so many words that the update is live. So we list Oct 20 as the day Obsidian posted the full patch notes, not as a confirmed launch time.
The post’s summary lists the headline additions: the Woodpile area with returning Termites, new O.G.R.R. variants and a Centipede boss; the Potato Beetle Buggy; base painting with the Splotcher; and “Upgrade weapons and armor to higher Tiers using the new Bismuth resource and Yoking Press.”
What changed between the test build and the full notes: the “PTB to Live Fixes” section has 15 entries in eight groups (Skritch, Buggies, Crafting, Quests, World, UI, Localization, Stability). Two examples: Skritch “Reintroduced the triple fast combo and Body Slam attacks”, and “Reduced Splinter Cannon ammo costs.” If you played the test build, those are the changes to look for.
The patch before Rot and Ruin was Hotfix 0.5.1.1 (Oct 1, 2026), which fixed one multiplayer bug: Steam players “could not connect to other players based on their Steam Download Region”. Before that came 0.5.1 (Sep 24, 2026), a balance and bug-fix patch.
We’ll add Rot and Ruin hotfixes to the tables below when Obsidian posts them. Any date you see for the next update isn’t from Obsidian until it posts one.
Every major update so far
Dates are when Obsidian posted the release announcement on Steam (UTC). Gaps are counted by us, from one release post to the next.
| Update | Version | Released | Days since previous |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early Access launch | – | Jul 29, 2025 | – |
| Hairy and Scary | 0.2 | Sep 30, 2025 | 63 |
| December Feature Update | 0.2.2 | Dec 3, 2025 | 64 |
| The Toxic Tangle | 0.3.0 (PTB was 0.3.0.1) | Jan 27, 2026 | 55 |
| Playgrounds Mode | not stated | Mar 24, 2026 | 56 |
| Beat the Heat | 0.4.0 | Apr 14, 2026 | 21 |
| Buggy Racing | 0.4.1 | May 27, 2026 | 43 |
| Into the Abyss | 0.5 | Aug 11, 2026 | 76 |
| Rot and Ruin | 0.6.0 | Oct 20, 2026 (full patch notes post) | 70 |
Notes on versions: the Toxic Tangle release post doesn’t give a version number, so we took it from the test build (0.3.0.1) and the first hotfix (0.3.0.2). The Playgrounds Mode release post has no version number, and its test build was 0.3.1.
What the gaps show: the shortest was 21 days (Playgrounds Mode to Beat the Heat), the longest 76 (Buggy Racing to Into the Abyss), and the average over all eight gaps is 56. Rot and Ruin’s 70 days is the second longest. The longest gap came before the biggest update: Obsidian called Into the Abyss “The Biggest Grounded 2 Update Yet”.
Obsidian splits these into two types. From the December post: “Feature Updates are different from Content Updates”. The December Feature Update brought back features rather than adding a new area, and it arrived on the same roughly two-month rhythm as the content updates.
Public tests come about two weeks before release
Most major updates had a public test build (PTB) on Steam first. This is the most useful early warning that a release is close.
| Update | Public test announced | Released | Days between |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hairy and Scary | Sep 16, 2025 | Sep 30, 2025 | 14 |
| The Toxic Tangle | Jan 13, 2026 | Jan 27, 2026 | 14 |
| Playgrounds Mode | Feb 24, 2026 | Mar 24, 2026 | 28 |
| Beat the Heat | Apr 1, 2026 | Apr 14, 2026 | 13 |
| Buggy Racing | May 12, 2026 | May 27, 2026 | 15 |
| Into the Abyss | none found on Steam | Aug 11, 2026 | – |
| Rot and Ruin | Oct 6, 2026 | Oct 20, 2026 (full patch notes post) | 14 |
Into the Abyss was different: instead of a test build, Obsidian announced the date two months ahead. The Jun 8, 2026 post says the update “launches August 11”. Before The Toxic Tangle, the date came in the second test-build post: “the full release of The Toxic Tangle update on January 27th” (Jan 15, 2026).
Rot and Ruin followed the usual pattern: a test build on Oct 6, then the full notes 14 days later. For the next update, the first sign to watch for on the Grounded 2 news page on Steam is again a test build post or a post with a release date.
How our estimate did
Before Obsidian’s Oct 20 post, this page gave our own estimate, counted from the Oct 6 test build: about Oct 19 to Nov 3, and most likely Oct 19 to 21, because four of the five earlier tests ran 13 to 15 days. The full patch notes came on Oct 20, 14 days after the test build, inside that most-likely window. The 70-day gap since Into the Abyss also fell inside the 69 to 84 days we had worked out.
That was arithmetic on past updates, not a date from Obsidian, and it happened to hold this time. We don’t give an estimate for the next update yet: there’s no name, test build or date for it, and gaps between updates have run from 21 to 76 days.
Patches and hotfixes between updates
Smaller patches come in between. Between Into the Abyss and Rot and Ruin, Obsidian posted seven patches and hotfixes, the last on Oct 1:
| Version | Date | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 0.5.0.1 | Aug 11, 2026 | Hotfix (same day as the update) |
| 0.5.0.2 | Aug 12, 2026 | Hotfix |
| 0.5.0.3 | Aug 13, 2026 | Hotfix |
| 0.5.0.4 | Aug 19, 2026 | Patch |
| 0.5.0.5 | Sep 2, 2026 | Patch |
| 0.5.1 | Sep 24, 2026 | Patch |
| 0.5.1.1 | Oct 1, 2026 | Hotfix |
Since Rot and Ruin, as of Nov 5, 2026:
| Version | Date | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 0.6.0.4 | Oct 28, 2026 | Patch, 8 days after the Oct 20 notes |
| 0.6.0.5 | Nov 4, 2026 | Patch, 7 days after 0.6.0.4 |
Obsidian’s Steam news has no posts for 0.6.0.1 to 0.6.0.3. The 0.6.0.4 notes include a workaround, not a fix, for one bug: “Players should be able to resolve O.G.G.R spawning issues by sleeping, then saving and loading the game.” The 0.6.0.5 notes are shorter: ten bug fixes in seven groups (World, Combat, Buggies, Saves, UI, Visuals, Stability), including “Fixed a crash related to world streaming.”
Earlier updates had the same shape: one or more hotfixes within about two weeks, then a larger patch. For example, Beat the Heat (Apr 14) got hotfix 0.4.0.1 the next day and patch 0.4.0.2 two weeks later.
Full list of earlier patches, all from Obsidian’s Steam posts:
| Version | Date |
|---|---|
| 0.1.1.2 (hotfix) | Jul 30, 2025 |
| 0.1.2 | Aug 6, 2025 |
| 0.1.3 | Aug 25, 2025 |
| 0.2.0.1 (hotfix) | Oct 7, 2025 |
| 0.2.2.3 (hotfix) | Dec 10, 2025 |
| 0.2.2.4 (hotfix) | Dec 12, 2025 |
| 0.3.0.2 (hotfix) | Jan 29, 2026 |
| 0.3.0.3 | Feb 11, 2026 |
| 0.4.0.1 (hotfix) | Apr 15, 2026 |
| 0.4.0.2 | Apr 28, 2026 |
| 0.4.2 (performance) | Jun 17, 2026 |
| 0.4.2.1 (hotfix) | Jul 2, 2026 |
| 0.4.2.2 (hotfix) | Jul 14, 2026 |
Grounded 2 roadmap: where to see it
Obsidian published an Early Access roadmap on launch day and later an updated one; the Toxic Tangle post says “be sure to check out our updated roadmap”. Both are images, so we don’t copy their contents here. You can see the current one on Steam or on Obsidian’s Grounded 2 site. The roadmap lists updates by season, not by date.
When a new update lands
Big updates have changed saves and crossplay before. After each one:
- Check that everyone in your group is on the same version before hosting. Our join failure guide covers the version checks.
- Expect hotfixes in the first few days (three in three days after Into the Abyss). If something breaks, waiting a day or two often fixes it.
- Read our patch pages for what changed, starting from the Grounded 2 page.