First of all, I want to say that most of my ideas here are based on one thing: Steam Workshop and a proper subscription-based addon system.
I know Steam Workshop is already being worked on, and I’m really glad to see that. I also think traditional addons are an important part of making Sandbox feel like a true sandbox again. Once players can easily discover, subscribe to, install, and manage community content, I believe many of the ideas below will become much more useful.
These are mostly my own suggestions and ideas based on my experience playing Sandbox and GMod. Some of them are small quality-of-life improvements, while others are things I think could become important parts of the Sandbox experience.
I hope more people can see these ideas, discuss them, and support the ones they agree with. I’m not saying everything here has to be implemented exactly as I described it — some of these are small quality-of-life improvements, while others are more long-term directions. I just want to share what I personally think could make Sandbox a much better experience.
1. Improve the Physgun beam
The Physgun beam currently feels really weird to me.
It isn’t straight — it wobbles quite noticeably. I understand that this may have been intended as a visual effect, and the idea itself is fine, but the wobble is so pronounced that I sometimes find myself focusing on it instead of what I’m actually doing.
Personally, I still much prefer the straight Physgun beam from the early days of Sandbox.
I think it would be great to either make the beam much more stable, or add an option to switch between the current effect and a simpler, straight beam.
2. Improve Dupes and their content management
For me, the icons for Dupes sometimes don’t show up at all, and the authors are displayed as “Unknown.” I’m not sure whether this is a network issue on my end or a bug, but it makes browsing Dupes much harder.
There is also another problem where, if I try to spawn a large number of something at once, the process can get stuck on a loading circle.
I understand that the current system may eventually be replaced or expanded by Steam Workshop and a proper addon/content system, but I still wanted to mention these problems because Dupes are an important part of Sandbox.
Ideally, Dupes should eventually have:
- Workshop integration
- Subscription support
- Favorites
- Better loading feedback
- The ability to easily find Dupes created by specific users
A good Dupe system could become one of the most important ways for players to share what they build.
3. Improve and unify FOV settings
I later realized that Sandbox does actually have an FOV setting, but it only seems to apply to Sandbox itself.
This made me realize that s&box has a larger problem: many 3D games on the platform don’t seem to have their own proper FOV settings, while the FOV option provided in the main game settings doesn’t seem to do anything for those games.
I know this is a Sandbox-focused feedback thread, but I still think this is worth mentioning because FOV is a basic setting that can have a big impact on how comfortable a 3D game feels.
Ideally, I’d like FOV settings to be more consistent across s&box games, while still allowing individual games to override them when necessary.
The setting should also persist between different games instead of having to be changed again every time.
In the future, I’d also like to see separate options for player/camera FOV and weapon/viewmodel FOV.
4. Reconsider the current lighting and shadows
The current lighting and shadows feel really strange to me.
Everything often looks quite heavy, grayish, dark, and highly saturated.
Personally, I still prefer the look of Sandbox back in 2023, before the Scene System update. To me, it felt much brighter and visually closer to games like CS2 or Half-Life: Alyx.
I’m not saying the current rendering technology is bad — quite the opposite. I think Source 2 gives s&box a lot of potential.
I just hope the final Sandbox experience can strike a better balance between atmosphere and readability, especially when players are building things or exploring large maps.
5. Custom Playermodels and a better Playermodel Selector
I really think Sandbox needs proper support for custom Playermodels.
I don’t hate Sausage Man, but I don’t particularly like being limited to one character either.
One of the biggest appeals of GMod was being able to choose whatever Playermodel you wanted. With a proper Workshop system, I think s&box could take this even further.
I’ve genuinely put real money into this game through cosmetics, and I’ve even gifted cosmetics to friends.
That’s why I really want the ability to use a custom Playermodel.
I also think the Playermodel selection interface itself should be much more advanced.
In GMod, you generally have to select a different model and then kill yourself before the change actually takes effect. That’s why one of the mods I always subscribe to in GMod is “Enhanced PlayerModel Selector Fesiug's Edit.”
It provides a much better interface and gives players more options for customizing and managing their Playermodel.
I think s&box could build something similar directly into Sandbox:
- Change Playermodel without killing yourself
- Preview models immediately
- Search and filter models
- Customize skins/bodygroups where supported
- Manage Workshop Playermodels
- Favorite frequently used models
- Easily switch between saved models
If s&box eventually has a proper Workshop, I think this could become a major part of the Sandbox experience.
6. Give players a choice for flying controls
The way flying works has now been changed to double-tapping Space.
Some players may be more used to the way flying works in GMod, where flying can be assigned to a dedicated keybind.
Personally, I think both approaches are reasonable.
Instead of forcing everyone to use one system, why not simply let players choose?
For example:
- Double-tap Space to toggle flying
- A dedicated keybind to toggle flying
Both could exist as options in the settings.
Giving players the choice is what matters most.
I think this philosophy could apply to many other Sandbox controls as well.
7. More in-game server and Sandbox settings
GMod also allows you to change many server settings directly in-game, and I think Sandbox should eventually provide more of these options too.
For example:
- Gravity
- Fall damage
- Movement-related settings
- Various gameplay rules
- Entity limits
- Spawn limits
- Other server-specific Sandbox settings
I especially want the ability to change limits in-game, similar to how you can do it in GMod.
Currently, in Sandbox, some of these limits have to be changed before starting the game.
For a sandbox game, I think these settings should be easily accessible while playing, especially for the host or administrators.
This would also become much more useful for multiplayer servers, where different maps or play styles may require completely different limits.
8. Improve or disable camera and viewmodel shake
The camera/viewmodel shake also feels really strange to me.
For example, when jumping or swinging a weapon, there can be a very noticeable GoldSrc-style camera movement.
I understand that some players may enjoy this kind of movement, but personally I find it distracting, and sometimes the shaking can genuinely be uncomfortable.
I would really like to see options for:
- Disabling camera shake
- Reducing camera shake
- Disabling viewmodel movement
- Adjusting weapon/viewmodel FOV
- Having behavior closer to GMod
This is especially important for a Sandbox game because players can spend a very long time building, experimenting, or simply messing around.
Having more control over camera effects would make the experience much more comfortable.
9. More administrator tools, especially teleportation
More administrator tools would be extremely useful in multiplayer Sandbox.
The feature I personally need the most is teleportation.
When playing on a map with friends in GMod, we often lose track of each other and have trouble finding where everyone is.
This becomes especially frustrating in story-based or scripted maps.
Sometimes only the host gets teleported after reaching a trigger point, while the other players are left behind and cannot properly experience the next part of the map.
Having proper administrator tools could solve this.
For example:
- Teleport yourself to another player
- Teleport another player to you
- Teleport a player to a specific location
- Bring all players to the host
- Player list with teleport actions
- Basic admin spawn restrictions
I think Sandbox should eventually have a proper built-in administration system instead of requiring players to rely on external addons for basic multiplayer management.
10. A proper Favorites system for the Spawn Menu and Tools
I would really like to see a dedicated Favorites system in the Spawn Menu.
This becomes especially important once Steam Workshop and community addons start growing.
In GMod, when you subscribe to a large number of addons, finding a specific item can become quite tedious because you have to scroll through everything over and over again.
A Favorites system would make this much easier.
For example, you could:
Right-click an item → Add to Favorites
Then, the next time you want to use it, you simply open the Favorites section instead of searching through everything again.
I would also like Favorites to support categories, for example:
- Weapons
- NPCs
- Props
- Vehicles
- Entities
- Dupes
- Other
The same system could also be applied to Tools.
You could right-click a tool and add it to Favorites, making your most frequently used tools much easier to access.
They could either appear near the front of the list or have their own dedicated Favorites tab.
11. More Scripted Maps and Mini-Game Experiences
I also hope Sandbox can support more small, scripted, and self-contained map experiences — not just full standalone games.
One of the things I really enjoy about GMod is that there are so many maps that are basically small games or experiences by themselves.
For example, there are horror maps where you simply load into the map with your friends, follow the story, trigger scripted events, solve puzzles, and see what happens next. There are also other scripted maps that create their own rules or gameplay without needing to be a full standalone gamemode.
I really enjoy this kind of content, and I think it would be a shame if Sandbox eventually focused mostly on building complete games while losing this kind of simple, accessible experience.
I know s&box already has the ability to create standalone games and more advanced game projects, and I think that is great. But I also think there should be a clear place for small community-made experiences that are designed specifically for Sandbox.
For example:
- Horror maps
- Story-driven maps
- Puzzle maps
- Scripted adventure maps
- Small mini-games
- Co-op experiences
- Maps with scripted events and triggers
- Maps with custom objectives or rules
- Short experimental experiences
Ideally, these could work almost like GMod maps: find one, subscribe to it, load into Sandbox with your friends, and just play.
I think this kind of content would give Sandbox a lot more variety and replayability.
Standalone games are great, and I definitely want to see more of them in s&box. But I don't think Sandbox should lose the simpler side of community content either.
Sometimes you don't want to play a full game — you just want to load a creepy map with your friends and see what happens.
Final Thoughts
I don't expect all of these ideas to be implemented exactly as I described them.
My main point is that I want Sandbox to give players more freedom, more choice, and better control over their own experience.
I also don't think s&box needs to simply become “GMod 2” by copying every feature from GMod.
What I want is for s&box to take the things that made GMod's Sandbox so enjoyable — the freedom, the customization, the community content, the ability to experiment — and build something even better on top of the Source 2 engine.
With Steam Workshop, traditional addons, custom Playermodels, better content discovery, and a stronger community ecosystem, I think Sandbox has the potential to become something much bigger than it is today.
These eleven points are just my own ideas, and I'm sure other players will have completely different opinions.
I hope more people can see this, share their own ideas, and support the suggestions they agree with.
The most important thing is that we keep giving constructive feedback while there is still an opportunity to shape what Sandbox becomes.
