Facepunch Studios founder Garry Newman announced a series of substantial changes planned for s&box, the upcoming spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod. Newman described the revisions as a shift toward refining the core sandbox experience, tightening curation tools and resolving persistent problems with discovery and low‑effort submissions. The update aims to bring s&box to the same level of polish as Garry’s Mod and eventually exceed it by expanding non‑player characters, introducing vehicles, enhancing multiplayer functionality and improving add‑on compatibility. Newman confirmed that the Citizen character model will be removed after the team spent “about a year longer than we should have” attempting to perfect it. A central focus of the changes is discovery; s&box has been inundated with numerous low‑effort or AI‑generated projects, making it difficult for players to locate high‑quality creations. Newman rejected the notion of a “Netflix for games” model, stating that the platform will now prioritize a smaller, curated selection of popular, high‑quality games. The Play Fund will transition to an approval‑based system, and Facepunch will replace its custom backend with deeper integration of Steam Workshop. Newman also indicated that s&box will become free‑to‑play before the end of the year, offering existing purchasers exclusive Steam inventory items as a thank‑you. The changes are intended to attract more players and provide the project with a clearer trajectory while the studio implements the updates.