‘Grounded 2, even in early access, is one of the best survival games I've ever played‘ - Out on Gamepass today!

Arachnophobia mode is for wimps, and I would go as far as saying that enabling it goes against this game's whole MO: to be creeped dafuq out, terrorised by the spiders... and to eventually overcome them and no longer fear their stalking presence at all in the game's world. In the first game you eventually become so grizzled and experienced that you become the king of the yard, and it is you who comes to bully the spiders. It's great!

This was my then 8-year-old son's experience, back when we played together. The spiders almost overwhelmed him, he was so frightened of them in the early days of the original game. But now he finds them trivial, and we joke about it whenever we reminisce about how cool Grounded was.

We're going into Grounded 2, not too afraid to face down the new spiders. Try it!
 
Hudo said:
If you'd told me that Obsidian would be better at making survival games than RPGs 10 years ago, I would've laughed my ass off.
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To be honest, I played the first one like an RPG. It has a story, there is tons of customization, stats and exploration. And even though a game like Subnautica has all that stuff, it never really feels like an RPG. Grounded does.
 
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Ive heard this is pretty amazing.

Obviously you have to be interested in Co op survival games, cant wait to play later. Spent tons of hours on the first.
 
I had fun with v rising that is a similar genre althought with isometric view, but mostly because the combat was great, combat in here look like the usual, uber basic shit you see in most survivals with base building, dune was the same but at least you had some cool powers...

Combat in here look like kiddie first soul...

I know people don't buy these game for the combat, but that doesn't change the fact that there is still a shitload of it.

But i love the miniaturized kid inside a garden concept, the infamous movie was one of my favourite when i was a kid.
 
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Cakeboxer said:
Can't wait, but not playing it before the final release.
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For what it's worth, there is supposed to be a roughly equivalent of the whole first game's completed release in Grounded 2's initial version. 40 hours worth of polished content with story campaign quest lines available as if you were playing a final release in terms of production values.
 
GymWolf said:
I had fun with v rising that is a similar genre althought with isometric view, but mostly because the combat was great, combat in here look like the usual, uber basic shit you see in most survivals with base building, dune was the same but at least you had some cool powers...

Combat in here look like kiddie first soul...

I know people don't buy these game for the combat, but that doesn't change the fact that there is still a shitload of it.

But i love the miniaturized kid inside a garden concept, the infamous movie was one of my favourite when i was a kid.
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Combat is improved over part 1.

Can make builds, parry, evade etc.

Have played for only an hour but atleast half way there to Avowed.
 
vaibhavpisal said:
Combat is improved over part 1.

Can make builds, parry, evade etc.

Have played for only an hour but atleast half way there to Avowed.
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Yeah i saw an enthusiastic review where he was talking about the combat improvements but when uber basic barebone stuff like evade roll, builds, parry and enemies blocking are being praised as huge improvements you can perfectly understand my original point, there are pixelated indie games or the worse soulslikes showelware on steam having all that stuff in their first iteration...

Beating stuff also look super weak, they barely react except for that yellow blood coming out and die with the same animation over and over, it really look unsatisfying as hell.
There are ways to make even cartoony combat for """"""childs"""""" to look weighty and impactful, it's like they learned nothing from avowed, even some ragdoll on the killing hit does wonders, avowed combat being satisfying was 90% that...
 
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SX seems to be practically locked 60 in the Performance mode and locked 30 in the Quality mode.

Series S has a single 30fps mode and can drop down to low 20's in some moments.


VMmU04uaybQbxKC6.png
 
Grounded 1 (and Abiotic Factor) are my standards for survival crafting games. I generally play these things solo. Progression is pretty integral for me when it comes to these games as I don't enjoy getting tons and tons of building materials to build up a base tediously (a la rust, ark, and other survival crafting), nor do I enjoy playing these on PvP servers and losing the hours of building and basically playing them like mini jobs to keep protections up.
I usually love exploration and slowly getting stronger and surviving better. Going from nothing to something kind of feeling in these games while following an over all path or story to give me a reason to do everything I'm doing.
Top this all off with really interesting settings for the games and I was sold.

Grounded 1 struck this perfectly in my eyes. A focus on a story and really good progression. Getting materials was fast, and you could boost yourself to make it even more efficient based on armors and potions you had, building your base up took no time at all and the materials were plentiful. Top that off with raids on your base from bugs and you had a pretty good set up.

So far Grounded 2 has been pretty great from what I've played, however there are a handful of things I feel need to be heavily rebalanced, or design changes. I'm very excited to see where this game goes.
  • Omnitool is a fantastic edition however it has a handful of weird design choices I feel don't work too well.
    • Not having it as an inventory item is weird. Since now its all contextual use. The trigger zone for all these things wildly off. I want to drink a chunk of water off a blade of grass, but I end up drinking it AND swinging my axe because the actions are bound to the same key.
      • As such, having any collectable item near something with contextual use makes the tool take priority. Tried to pick up stuff around a blade of grass, and had to cut down the whole thing before I was able to. A bug died on a spot with buried treasure before I had a shovel. Couldn't loot the bug because the treasure took priority.
      • I would bring it back to a usable item on my tool bar that would just change based on what I'm trying to do, or a hot key to swap modes. Not sure how the hotkey would work with console considerations. So perhaps it auto swaps based on what you're doing.
    • Thematically it makes sense to have a multitool. I've seen complaints that it ruins the immersion since you aren't making the tools from bugs. It made sense in the first game as you were dropped into a yard with zero assistance and understanding of things. This second game opens up with Ominent having made several advancements, and it would make sense to use the tools they have since now the new person is leading you in this story (so far)
      • What doesn't make sense is the use of bug parts to upgrade the tool. I feel that's just gamification but Ultimately I don't care enough to really complain about it.
  • Bug Placement is reaaaaally weird to me in this game. Back in the first game you had several "Biomes" or zones. The swampy area and large bodies of water had mosquitos, spiders were under rocks, planks, in small corners, the hedge biome, near the small posts by the pond, etc. Bee's were all over buy centralized by hives near a tree stump as well the picnic table for the food. So far in Grounded 2 they just seem to be anywhere they damn well please. In the first game I could go "oh this is a small crevasse there's probably a spider" or go "Oh I need XYZ part from a bug, I just have to go near XYZ location because that would thematically make sense for bugs to be there". So far in the second game, just in the area near the camera, and all the way up to the Burg.L body, I have found Mosquitos, Soldier ants, Larva, Mini Orb weavers, spiderlings, Cockroachs, Lady bugs, Slugs, and stink bugs. While yes, bug can go anywhere, it just feels super unpredictable and very annoying to traverse when I have a mixture of Tier 2 bugs mixed in with Tier 1s wandering around. Fighting soldier ants only to get taken out by a Mosquito that aggro'd, and a stink bug charging at you feels really unbalanced. Spiders just seem to be everywhere. Wandering around the camera area they are just out in the open walking around in the day light or sleeping just in the open field. It just doesn't make sense from where things came from originally.
  • Gathering materials are starting to get tedious. Originally in the first game cutting grass or dandelions would take a handful of hits. Now they are painstakingly taking almost double, if not more hits. A tier 1 axe in grounded 1 could fall a grass blade in 2-4 hits, where now I'm reaching upwards of 6. Dandelions taking well over 8-9 hits compared to the 4-5 it used to be. Sounds like small changes, but adds up when in the beginning you can only hold 5 large items at a time. Building time severely tanks.
  • Various bugs I have found (pun not intended) with lighting, spiders flying in air at me, the slug is a little glitchy with its animations, performance issues for people (I haven't been hit as hard? 32:9, 5120x1440 resolution, maxed settings about 45-50FPS. Turning to 75% render gets me over 100FPS. Game runs amazingly well on linux, but a little trickery to get crossplay to work out of the box. Perhaps this is fixed now?)
  • The increase from 3-4 researches before cool down is nice, however the game doesn't focus much on explaining raw science to you still for unlocks. Unless you've played the first game, the small blurb they mention about it in the help bubbles that pop up aren't enough to really inform you. I've already unlocked tons of recipes for things I can't even make for quite some time. Making unlocks earned WAY too fast. I haven't even seen or fought a handful of the bugs I have crafts for now.
    • The bubbles that pop up and teach you I feel aren't incredibly helpful as they appear for only a small window of time, before you have a chance to even realize it, then disappear. While I don't want the game to hold your hand, I also think if you're going to explain mechanics, small blurbs about major things aren't really the answer. If you're coming from the first game, you should be familiar with MOST systems.

I haven't played around with the buggy system fully yet. Need more time with it. Perhaps I'll have more to add here, but for the most part those are the design choices I feel are weird or don't really work well thus far. I'm sure in due time a lot of this will change. I'm really enjoying what they have so far. This is Grounded on a larger scale and even more to see and do. Can't wait to see what else there is. Especially if the map in the game is anything to hint at the full complete size of the world when they are done. (It seems like you can scroll pretty far out of the map before you hit the edge. So perhaps that's a sign that they are planning a very large world. We shall see!)
 
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adamsapple said:
SX seems to be practically locked 60 in the Performance mode and locked 30 in the Quality mode.

Series S has a single 30fps mode and can drop down to low 20's in some moments.


VMmU04uaybQbxKC6.png
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I've been playing Grounded 1 since the early preview version days until the last patch and the difference in performance and visuals was pretty noticeable. They will most likely improve this in the future too.
 
GymWolf said:
Yeah i saw an enthusiastic review where he was talking about the combat improvements but when uber basic barebone stuff like evade roll, builds, parry and enemies blocking are being praised as huge improvements you can perfectly understand my original point, there are pixelated indie games or the worse soulslikes showelware on steam having all that stuff in their first iteration...

Beating stuff also look super weak, they barely react except for that yellow blood coming out and die with the same animation over and over, it really look unsatisfying as hell.
There are ways to make even cartoony combat for """"""childs"""""" to look weighty and impactful, it's like they learned nothing from avowed, even some ragdoll on the killing hit does wonders, avowed combat being satisfying was 90% that...
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It still isn't a amazing action game obviously.

Main draw here is traversing the map to get to original size.

But combat doesn't gets in the way and definitely feels satisfying.
 
Game opens up a good bit when you get your first mount early on. It significantly increases your speed/range and has its own inventory slots too.
Great for exploring because the extra speed allows you to easily outpace the bigger baddies you can run in to.
 
Grounded started off fun, but at some point they forced you to grind hard to progress just a little bit. I really hated how they pulled that crap so late in the game, knowing most people would grind away to finish it. I could care less how improved this game is, I am still bored of grinding in the last game. I am pre-bored of this game.
 
JayK47 said:
Grounded started off fun, but at some point they forced you to grind hard to progress just a little bit. I really hated how they pulled that crap so late in the game, knowing most people would grind away to finish it. I could care less how improved this game is, I am still bored of grinding in the last game. I am pre-bored of this game.
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Interesting. I just recently sat through the game again. Curious to where you found a grinding spot that egregious. I mean in general there isn't really a grind in the game? At most the Antlions early on before you had to go to the grill? But even that wasn't a grind.
What did you run into that made you feel like you had to grind? The game does a good job at giving you what you needed. Never felt like I had to specifically kill a bunch of things or collect a million things to achieve something. And if you struggled with a section of the game, you probably had improper gear for what it was.
 
Doom_master1122 said:
Interesting. I just recently sat through the game again. Curious to where you found a grinding spot that egregious. I mean in general there isn't really a grind in the game? At most the Antlions early on before you had to go to the grill? But even that wasn't a grind.
What did you run into that made you feel like you had to grind? The game does a good job at giving you what you needed. Never felt like I had to specifically kill a bunch of things or collect a million things to achieve something. And if you struggled with a section of the game, you probably had improper gear for what it was.
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I never felt it was grindy, too. But then again me and my friend collected pretty much everything we could from a get go and stored in our base. I almost always had everything I needed whenever I needed it.
 
This game is better paced at beginning I believe.

In starting area, there is less threat from big spiders unless I go in their area.

Also, time flies by when playing this. Yesterday didn't even realise we had played for 4 hrs.
 
Not sure if I should hold off until it leaves early access. I enjoyed Grounded, but by the time it was announced as being complete I felt like I both wanted to play it as a final version, but also like I didn't want to start again.
 
Yet another survival game limited by its console origins. 4 player limit really? When you hard cap the player count you severely limit your audience, especially in this genre where the people who play them typically have a crew. Hard pass on this just like the first game.
 
Hari Seldon said:
Yet another survival game limited by its console origins. 4 player limit really? When you hard cap the player count you severely limit your audience, especially in this genre where the people who play them typically have a crew. Hard pass on this just like the first game.
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It has a carefully crafted map.

There is a good progression and exploration thanks to that. Not sure having more players work here.

Its not purely about building stuff.
 
Love Grounded 1, I'm really enjoying Grounded 2. Aside from the Early Access woes (semi-frequent crashes), the one other problem I have is the limited progression.

Grounded 1 had up to Tier 3 upgrades, had a plethora of build materials that required Tier 3 materials. Grounded 2 stops at Tier 2 for building materials, things in Grounded 1 just aren't present in Grounded 2 yet... so that is a bummer.

But other than that, I'm loving it. The game will get there eventually. Roadmap is already out.
 
POKEYCLYDE said:
Love Grounded 1, I'm really enjoying Grounded 2. Aside from the Early Access woes (semi-frequent crashes), the one other problem I have is the limited progression.

Grounded 1 had up to Tier 3 upgrades, had a plethora of build materials that required Tier 3 materials. Grounded 2 stops at Tier 2 for building materials, things in Grounded 1 just aren't present in Grounded 2 yet... so that is a bummer.

But other than that, I'm loving it. The game will get there eventually. Roadmap is already out.
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I have already started building some tier 2 weapons and armours in 5 hrs of play.

I imagine I will get some 20 hrs out of this early access to make stuff that I want.

Enjoying it, hopefully 1.0 comes soon.
 
Not my kind of game, but I thought the first one looked neat and I know people really enjoyed it. So I'm looking forward to seeing how people feel about the sequel.

I will say I'm pretty impressed with Obsidian and all the releases they've dropped in such a small period, even if they're not for everyone. There have been people that have enjoyed them.
 
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