Sandbox (video game)

Sandbox (stylized as s&box) is an upcoming sandbox game developed and published by Facepunch Studios. Regarded as a spiritual successor to Garry's Mod, the game provides players with a platform from which to develop and play different user-created gamemodes.

Gameplay
Sandbox is a physics-based sandbox game that, in its base game mode, has no set objectives. The player is able to spawn non-player characters, ragdolls, and props, and interact with them by various means. Unlike Garry's Mod, Sandbox has been built with the core philosophy of providing a platform for user-created game modes rather than incorporating those game modes alongside the existing framework. Example gamemodes include Melon Racer, Prophunt and Trouble in Terrorist Town. Much like its predecessor, Sandbox provides a platform from which user-created content can be shared among the playerbase.

Unlike Garry's Mod, which expects the user to mount content from other Source engine games, such as Counter-Strike: Source and Portal, Sandbox provides a standalone experience from which players can participate in user-created gamemodes, and the original Sandbox gamemode has been de-emphasized by the developer. Garry Newman, founder of Facepunch Studios, has expressed hope that both Facepunch and the community would be able to use Sandbox as a platform to build and export standalone games for sale on Steam.

Opium
In order to demonstrate the new scene system, several Facepunch Studios developers built Opium, as a "PSX-style" first-person experience inspired by the Condemned game series and combining melee combat & weapon scavenging with basic puzzle-solving. A short experience, Opium places the player in a crack house and faces them against violent "crackheads" with "occult undertones".

Team Fortress: Source 2
An unofficial remake of Team Fortress 2 within the Source 2 engine was initially developed under the title Team Fortress: Source 2 (alternatively abbreviated as TF: S2), with the first development blog post released in August 2021 by the team, Amper Software. Work on the remake continued into 2024, with the developers providing frequent updates and undertaking community beta testing; however, as of January 2024, the project has been cancelled, following a takedown request by Valve Software and impending changes to Sandbox itself.

Development and release
The predecessor to Sandbox, Garry's Mod, was first released in 2004 by Garry Newman as a mod for the game Half-Life 2 and, by extension, the Source game engine. In late 2015, Newman stated Facepunch was working on a Garry's Mod sequel with a focus on virtual reality. It was formally announced in 2017 as being developed on Unreal Engine 4, but development was paused in 2019 and later shifted to Valve's Source 2 engine in March 2020. A public release was planned for the second half of 2021, with a select group already having received early access to its closed beta, while further waves of developers have been provided with keys on a first-come, first-serve basis. In Sandbox, players can pick from many gamemodes similar to Garry's Mod. The game uses C# as a backend for user-created content. Newman has stated among the improvements are entity physics, lighting, and water effects.