Garry's Mod is a unique project, even among PC games. Released in 2006, Valve published the sandbox game despite it featuring no actual objectives, goals, or progression mechanics. It's a pure sandbox, in which Garry's Mod players can create their own games, movies, or more. That focus on user-created content has kept Garry's Mod popular even to this day, as it frequently ranks in Steam's top 25 most-played games. Now Garry's Mod is getting a sequel of sorts named s&box, that's looking more and more impressive.
S&box is, like Garry's Mod, being developed by creator Garry Newman. Newman started the project back in 2015 and in the years since it's changed in several ways. It even went on a development hiatus in 2019. Now, however, Newman has found new energy for s&box, following the game's shift from Unreal Engine to the Source 2 engine in 2020. Newman has also started providing regular updates for s&box, with the latest providing the clearest look at the sandbox game yet.
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In the latest s&box developer update, Newman and team showcase some of the exciting tech that's now built into the sandbox. The update is filled with short clips showing how tech like ragdolls, combining physics objects, breakables, water, and more works in-game. Newman also talks about the implementation of other features, like matchmaking, hotboxes, scoreboards, and more. s&box is looking closer to a playable state than ever.
Finally, Newman talks a bit about what the team will work on next. He says that up until now playing the current build of s&box in groups has been rare, with just 3-4 people messing around. In the next several weeks, Newman wants to get a decent internal multiplayer test going. At that point, Newman says they should be able to evaluate just what s&box needs in order to invite others into the game. His final thoughts are that it may be better to do that "sooner rather than later."
S&box is currently in development for PC.