Grounded 2 (Early Access)

Despite the fact that Early Access by definition sees developers selling incomplete games and asking the community to be patient as they sculpt it into the promised end product, there are a list of examples that prove this format can be greatly successful. Baldur's Gate III is the highest-profile example, but Obsidian's Grounded is another fine candidate, with the original survival game now being one of the best in the genre. After years of improvement, Obsidian has come to the conclusion that the future of Grounded required a significant evolution, which is why we were introduced to Grounded 2 earlier this year, a project that has recently launched as an Early Access title.

As of recently, I've returned to the miniaturised survival series to hop into a bunch of Grounded 2 to see how the game is shaping up. After a few hours, it's abundantly clear that Obsidian has once again created a competent and thrilling experience, albeit one that is overcome with the same design choices and even issues that the survival genre itself tends to face. Essentially, if you find yourself on the fence about survival games, Grounded 2 won't do a great deal to convince you it's worthy of your time.

There is a story at the heart of this game but when you boil it down it's very similar to what was available in the first Grounded. Long story short, you've been shrunken down to the size of an insect and now you're dealing with the overwhelming and immense task of attempting to survive day-after-day in a hazard-filled garden. While that might seem quite simple for a regular-sized human, for something millimetres in height, the world is a very dangerous place, littered with environmental hazards, deadly and hungry predators, and a scarcity of resources designed for pipsqueak people. Don't get me wrong, there's more to the narrative beyond this, with it weaving in corporate conspiracies and additional mysteries, but for the most part, the daily tasks surround simply surviving.

To its credit, Grounded 2 doesn't waste much of your time when kicking off. There's no aimless wandering as you attempt to find and construct the most fundamental and basic items like clothing and a backpack. You start with several items and then build on this with craftable or upgradable gear and gadgets, be it a crude spear, armour made from leaves, or the trusty Omni-Tool, which is an all-in-one axe, shovel, spade, and wrench. Typically speaking, the more common items are very easy to construct, often from plentifully spread resources, and you can build a lot without needing a workbench. But if you do want to go above and beyond and begin crafting more complex items, you will need to make a workbench and then scour the land for rarer, and traditionally more dangerous to acquire resources.

This is where the familiar survival loop takes place, as you end up spending hours doing menial tasks and gathering basic resources in order to slightly improve your strength and battle prowess, so that as you venture further away from the 'safer' zones, you're better equipped for whatever the game throws at you. And believe me, Grounded 2 pulls no punches. While it can be a nightmare to fight a simple soldier ant in one-on-one combat, spiders and scorpions only serve to make your tiny life all the more miserable and demanding.

Thankfully, Grounded 2 isn't just about battling for survival with a matchstick wedged between your teeth like a tiny Rambo. Much of the game is also about learning and researching the items in the world all in the name of mad science. By taking resources to the analyser, you can learn new recipes and crafting techniques, both to put into practice and also to increase your intelligence and therefore advance in level and pave the way to even more craftable recipes. Despite being an Early Access game, Grounded 2 already has tons of researchable options plus nine levels to climb through, meaning you will have plenty of reasons to continue pushing forward all in the name of science.

Plus, there's a level of player intuition used in this game, a design style where you learn through practice and critical thinking, mostly because the world Grounded 2 is set in is immensely familiar to most people. When you're asked to find water, you don't immediately attempt to craft something like in Dune: Awakening, you look up and see a few dew drops hanging off blades of grass. If you're looking for acorns, the immediate idea is to head where acorns should be; somewhere around the base of an oak tree. It's a very intuitive game, and I can appreciate that as a positive for certain.

Matching the crafting and science up with the building suite that allows you to construct your own shelters and make a safe space in this otherwise hostile world, a system that is quite intuitive and easy to handle, Grounded 2 does have a lot going for it, even at this early stage. But this is also where I find myself losing interest in Grounded 2 a tad, because in practice, aside from the world design and premise, it plays like nearly every other survival game on the market. And yes, that means getting stuck at times and forced to spend too long doing boring repetitive tasks, perhaps even having to almost restart from scratch too should you make a mistake or bite off more than you can chew and die when exploring. Considering just how many survival games are available today, most of which are incredibly similar to one another, this is what makes Grounded 2 less of a must play and more of another option for dedicated fans of the genre - at least in its current form.

All in all, Grounded 2 strikes me as a very traditional survival game in practice, even if the intuitive design and the enjoyable and memorable world stand out as highlights. This is a game that you will love for a few hours and then steadily lose interest in, unless you're a die-hard survival fan that lives and breathes this genre. Make of that what you will, but just know that for an Early Access game, Grounded 2 feels much more complete already than some of the options in recent memory, and it will only get better on the road to an eventual 1.0 launch.