Obsidian recently made a lot of hay out of how it’s a studio that’s best known for sequels, and with Grounded 2’s early access version already shaping up to be one of the best survival games I’ve ever played, the marketing team should have plenty of fodder for that bit for years to come. This miniaturized survival game isn’t even half complete, with only one act (which took me around 25 hours to beat), just a handful of regions, and plenty of technical issues to iron out, but it already eclipses the already stellar original in practically every way. Stomping through the park atop an ant or spider simultaneously makes travel faster and more interesting while also solving my long-standing inventory gripes with Grounded 1 by letting you offload your loot to a multi-legged backpack; the RPG mechanics of building into specific specializations like warrior and mage have been seriously leveled up and streamlined; and the story, characters, and pacing are a massive step up compared to its predecessor.
If you missed the first one (and you really shouldn’t have), part of what makes both of these games special is their premise, which realizes a dream that pretty much everybody had as a kid: they’re survival RPGs where you and up to three friends play as a group of teens who have been shrunken down to the size of ants and are made to brave a miniature suburban wilderness, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-style. You and up to three friends will battle bugs, build bases out of grass and pebbles, face off against an evil corporation obsessed with shrinking kids for some reason, and get lost in a world that feels magical and epic despite taking place in the most mundane places ever, like the inside of a trash can.
Where the original’s excellent story was the best-kept secret in gaming (mostly due to the fact that story bits were separated by dozens of hours of survival gameplay) the sequel keeps its goofy characters and hilarious dialogue front and center. In true Obsidian fashion, this is one of the most laugh-out-loud-funny games I’ve played in a while; each of the four returning protagonists is way too comfortable with the idea of being shrunken this time and are bursting with smarmy one-liners, and your main “ally” and guide, Sloane Beaumont, gives one of my favorite performances with her vaguely evil stepmother routine that never failed to put a smile on my face.
Moving from a backyard to a park allows for some interesting new areas, my favorite of which is an overturned ice cream cart that has transformed the entire region into a frigid wasteland where unprepared travelers will freeze in their tracks. There’s also a giant statue that acts like a foreboding tower which demands to be scaled, and a garden of cobblestone steps that serves as a vast labyrinth. Beyond these examples, though, there are currently too few areas that feel special and unique – you’ll also find a big bush filled with branches to navigate, a fallen grill that serves as a volcanic area, and a picnic table, but all of those ideas are taken straight from the previous game’s backyard setting and don’t mix things up too much. The first Grounded also has a neat koi pond water area, a bug-bombed zone filled with poison, and a desert-like sandbox, but this new map doesn’t currently have that same level of variety yet. Of course, many of those were added during Grounded 1’s own early access development period, and there are still massive parts of the park currently roped off – so assuming something doesn’t go terribly wrong (and in this day and age, that’s not necessarily a guarantee), it’s reasonable to assume that Obsidian has some big ideas to roll out before 1.0.
A lot of the fundamentals from the first Grounded have returned, including enemies like red ants and orb weavers, weapons like the life-draining mosquito needle rapier, and mechanics like the mutation system and weapon upgrades that will all feel pretty familiar as of now. But Grounded 2 also doesn’t shy away from trying new things and making important improvements, like how you no longer need to carry around a shovel, ax, and hammer since it’s all been replaced with a much better omni-tool that you always have on hand and doesn’t require repairing. That’s just handy!
One massive change is the fact that you can now build into specific classes, like rogue or mage, with armor and weapons available to support different playstyles. This was already sort of an unofficial thing in the original, but now you get equipment specially designed with certain functions in mind and stat bonuses to go with them, which is really freakin’ cool. Getting to choose between turning my nerdy teen into a fast-moving rogue with a deadly dagger or a lumbering brute with a two-handed weapon and ladybug shell armor was exactly the kind of thing I didn’t know was missing, and it absolutely rules.
The biggest addition, though, is that you can now hatch and domesticate insects to use as your own personal exo-stallions, which completely changes how you navigate the wilderness. Instead of building ziplines or trekking everywhere on foot, you can now scramble across the entire map in no time at all and even battle mosquitos and beetles from your mounted beastie. Right now there’s only two mounts available, but they’re both absolutely badass gamechangers: a red soldier ant that can carry a ton of materials and chew through obstructions with its powerful mandibles, and a giant orb weaver that can crawl across spiderwebs and scare lesser bugs away with a mighty spider roar. The ability to dash across the map in less than a minute also means that now when a friend finds themselves in a tight spot, you can summon your warbeast and race to their aid, which wasn’t always a real option in the original.
I love what I’ve seen in those areas, but one place I hope Obsidian will eventually show some more love is base building, which is disappointingly similar to the original right now. Its mechanics are still serviceable enough to get the job done, but too often I’m getting the same old error messages that some object I was trying to place was obstructed when there’s no obstruction in sight, and some building surfaces (like pebble foundation) are so uneven that placing items leaves them so hilariously askew that it’s just unacceptably ugly. It seems like one of the least-improved areas in its current state.
Another thing that could use some love is enemy variety, since the vast majority of baddies you’ll find in Grounded 2 are ripped straight from its predecessor, so I already knew all their moves before I set foot in the park. Occasionally I’ve run into some new creatures, like ice-breathing butterflies that fight with the ferocity and tactics of a dragon, or praying mantises that use their razor-sharp claws to slice me to pieces, but more often than not I was killing the same ants, orb weavers, and larvae I’ve already slain thousands of. For that matter, right now Grounded 2 is even missing lots of the enemies found in the original (or, if they are here, I haven’t looked under the right rock yet), like black ox beetles and wasps – but, again, there’s a pretty good chance Obsidian is saving these monsters (or better yet, revised versions of them) for the later areas that aren’t accessible just yet.
As for how it runs, this is a fairly rough one even as early access games go. Especially since the last one still didn’t perform the best even well after it reached its 1.0 version, I wasn’t expecting it to run flawlessly, but even with those expectations set, this was reliably unreliable. After building a good-sized base and chopping down a bunch of grass, I found that the area near my home regularly had serious framerate issues, my game crashed about once every five or so hours, enemies would occasionally get stuck inside objects, and more. “Unfinished game feels unfinished” is hardly a surprise, I know, but this is still enough of an issue that it’s likely to prove a sticking point for those with a low tolerance for the wrong kind of bugs. I tend to have a fairly short fuse when it comes to this stuff, so it’s a testament to how great everything else is that I’m still so high on Grounded 2 after having to put up with all of it.
