Grounded is finally finished. Is that even the right word? When the unexpected project from a small team at Obsidian hit Xbox in the form of early access two years ago, I was shocked at just how much I enjoyed it. While it’s firmly in a genre that I generally don’t enjoy, the premise and the setting were just unique enough to really grab me. But that was two years ago. Now, Grounded has expanded in so many ways and finally branded itself as finished with the much coveted 1.0 release. The backyard has changed a bit two years on, but the general vibe has remained the same. So, is Grounded great with more to do and see as well as a proper story to play through? Mostly.
The crux of the Grounded story surrounds four kids who wake up having been shrunken down to the size of ants. Or slightly smaller. I’m not sure. The story takes place in the early 1990s, offering up a tone and atmosphere, not unlike comic sci-fi films from the same era as Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. The kids must investigate the backyard they’re in to discover just how a shady corporation is involved in their predicament and, hopefully, return themselves to normal.
While it’s a reductive comparison to make, Grounded plays most similarly to games like Minecraft. The kids start with nothing and scavenge the world to retrieve ingredients and resources, which can then be used to craft weapons, armour, and items that help you survive in this world. The premise of Grounded really separates it from its contemporaries – you’re exploring what is undoubtedly a version of your own backyard. Usually this would be boring, but when you’ve been shrunken to the smallest thing in the yard, everything is terrifying.
There’s a nice variety of enemies here too. From something as small and unassuming as an aphid to something as terrorising as a spider or praying mantis, there is always something to either hunt or run away from in the backyard. Slowly, as you spend more time in the world, you’ll come to recognise the friendlier creatures versus the aggressive ones. And, similarly, it’s incredibly rewarding to hunt creatures that, at the beginning of your journey, you couldn’t best. All in all, this incredibly enemy variety comes together to make Grounded feel like a real living breathing ecosystem, well beyond the state that it was in when it first launched years ago.
Grounded can be played as a focused story game or a more open-ended survival game, no matter your preference. But a lot of the story elements that have been added do their best to play like other Obsidian games you might have played. While it liberally borrows crafting aspects from games like Minecraft and even The Forest, I can’t help but look at the map and quest logs and be reminded of games like Fallout: New Vegas or even The Outer Worlds. It’s a lot of this interstitial material – like a bestiary filled out with kids cupping their hands to their eyes as if to be playing with binoculars – that gives Grounded a signature sense of charm that separates it from its contemporaries.
But it’s not just the enemies. It’s the entire backyard. It’s a joy to explore, and you’ll come across so many structures like you would in an Elder Scrolls game or a Fallout game, except they’re often just rubbish. A discarded soft drink can serve as a fantastic shelter from big spiders. A Battletoads figurine just smooshed into the dirt, abandoned by the children playing with it. A packet of mints. A juice box. All boring things normally, but coming across them with the same sense of wonder as I would coming across a daedric shrine in Skyrim is a testament to Obisdian’s worldbuilding here. It’s just a really, really good world to explore.
The most talked about aspect of the final release is the story mode, which feels welcome in a genre that usually doesn’t bother. The general flow of the story is good – the kids will travel from different areas in the garden to uncover the truth about their predicament. Along the way, they’ll encounter better equipment and even some boss battles with some more menacing creatures. I enjoyed playing the story mode, but I often ran into some difficulty spikes that made me think Grounded would be better enjoyed with friends.
I say this because Grounded is, from the get-go, a pretty tricky game. You will have to manage your hunger and thirst fairly regularly, which can often take you off the critical path of the story. In doing that, you might even be attacked or killed on the way and face an even greater setback in terms of both time and physical distance. Having other players with you just feels like the way the game is meant to be played. Being able to split up and delegate tasks between yourselves feels like not only the spirit of the game but the spirit of the story too.
That being said, you can adjust the difficulty to be whatever you want it to be. Whether you want to manage your resources less or remove thirst and hunger entirely. The accessibility options in Grounded are some of the best – letting players have the experience they want and even giving options to tone down the appearance of spiders for those with arachnophobia. In a first from me, I’d recommend playing Grounded on the Mild difficulty initially and adjusting from there – you’ll get the most out of the game this way, especially if you’re playing it solo.
Presentation-wise, Grounded is similarly strong. While the cynic in me thinks Grounded is trying to riff off of the popularity of series similar to Stranger Things, the presentation is still excellent. The whole experience is soaked in upbeat and synthy tracks, alluding to the high-tech nature of the situation the kids find themselves in while successfully calling back to the era that the game is trying to hard to emulate. The visuals are similarly beautiful – seeing the sunshine through the blades of grass on newer hardware gives a sense of depth and place to the surface of the backyard. It’s, all around, a great-looking game.
So, Grounded is finished. Or at least it’s ready for prime time. Looking at Obsidian’s plans for the game, I’m excited to see they’re not quite done with it yet. What’s here is already fantastic and feels complete, but the potential to keep on expanding is also quite exciting. For now, there’s never been a better time to jump into Grounded and, even better, jump in with friends and discover all of the mystery the backyard offers. Literally, go touch grass.
THE XBOX VERSION WAS PLAYED ON AN XBOX SERIES X FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS REVIEW. A DIGITAL COPY OF THE GAME WAS PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHER.
