Overview
- Facepunch founder Garry Newman announced on Wednesday that s&box will become free to play toward the end of 2026 and that everyone who already bought the game will receive exclusive Steam inventory items as compensation.
- The studio said its ‘Netflix for games’ approach failed and will be replaced with human curation: the Play Fund will move to an application-and-approval model and a number of low-quality games and maps have already been removed.
- Discovery will shift toward the existing Steam Workshop rather than Facepunch’s bespoke backend, a change the studio says will make it easier for players to find higher-quality community content.
- Development focus will move from engine and creator tooling to player-facing Sandbox features, with planned additions including more NPCs, vehicles, multiplayer fixes, addon support, faster startup, and frame-rate improvements for lower-end hardware.
- The rethink follows poor reception and low retention for s&box—roughly 47% positive Steam reviews and small concurrent player counts compared with Garry’s Mod—and aims to grow the active player base and repair the platform’s reputation.