Facepunch is FINALLY Giving What Players Wanted...A GMod 2

Summary

The video reviews a major S&box update aimed at making the platform more familiar and accessible to players while addressing performance and stability. Its central—and most controversial—change is the move toward Steam Workshop support.

Main Updates

• Steam Workshop: Facepunch plans a gradual transition from its own workshop system and encourages developers to republish their content. Eventually, games and maps not published through the new system may no longer be accessible. This change concerns publishing content on the platform, not publishing a standalone game on Steam.
• Achievement-based rewards: Weekly rewards will depend on completing selected achievements in platform games rather than simply spending time in them. The goal is to encourage active play and bring players together.
• Source 1 mounts: Players can mount games they own on Steam and use their content in Sandbox mode, including Garry’s Mod. Community-created support for other engines, such as GoldSrc and Unreal Engine, is also mentioned.
• Graphics and performance: Updates include sharper, non-temporal screen-space reflections, CMAA2 anti-aliasing, GPU occlusion culling, faster lighting and startup, smoother shadows, and improved shader compilation.
• Content and tools: The update adds two human heads, password-protected servers and lobbies, and a simpler way to publish only the assets a game uses. Developer tools and crash reporting have also been improved, alongside numerous bug fixes and networking updates.

Community Concerns and Takeaway

The narrator sees the Steam Workshop transition as a response to long-standing player requests, but recognizes that many developers prefer Facepunch’s existing workshop tools and worry the change will disrupt their work.

The discussion also covers broader S&box concerns, including performance on lower-end PCs, uneven game quality, AI-generated games, changes to developer rewards, and past platform decisions that have frustrated parts of the community.

The narrator hopes Facepunch can find a middle ground that serves players and creators alike. The update is presented as progress, not a complete fix: performance and the overall selection and quality of games still need work.

Gamers and Sources Mentioned

• Blog-post contributors: Tony, Garry, Layla, Sam, Matt, Dan, Alex, and Lorenz
• Community contributor: Dead Monster
• Other people and references: Terry, Claude, the PC Gamer article, Beeler’s video, CaKsO, and VanossCrew
• Video source: Eridium