Grounded Game Review
3 Step Game Review
Grounded Dossier Sections
- Menu
- Crafting Guide
- Quests Guide
- Creatures Guide
- Gameplay Highlights
- Gallery
- Tools & Gear Guide (wip)
- Base Building Guide (wip)
- Beginners Guide (wip)
About the Game
Released
July 28, 2020
Developer
Obsidian Entertainment
Price
US$ 29.99
(MAY VARY PER LOCATION)
Game Description
The world is a vast, beautiful and dangerous place – especially when you have been shrunk to the size of an ant. Explore, build and survive together in this first person, multiplayer, survival-adventure. Can you thrive alongside the hordes of giant insects, fighting to survive the perils of the backyard?
Explore this immersive and persistent world, where the insect life reacts to your actions. Shelter and tools are critical to your survival. Build epic bases to protect you and your stuff from the insects and the elements… (continues…)
Step 1: Playing Conditions
Read below the game basic characteristics. If it is something you see yourself playing, move on to Step 2: Graphics & Sound.
Gameplay Overview
Possibly inspired by the movie “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”, Grounded is a friend and family survival game that can be played solo or together with other 3 players. You will FIGHT TO SURVIVE from all dangerous a backyard can present.
It is an open-world game with dozens of resources, insects, and secrets to learn about. For a big part of the gameplay, you will be collecting resources to craft, build, or cook things. As, the best you prepare, higher will be your success in exploration, quests, or combat adventures.
The game comes with a SHORT CHAIN OF STORY QUESTS that when completed unlocks daily repeatable quests. But keep in mind, the core game is to learn how to survive and strive with what the environment offers.
As most Early Access games, Grounded starts with a lot of bugs and glitches. Some have workarounds and some we will just need to wait for a fix.
One truth Grounded share with most of the survival games is that, the more you learn, the easier the game gets. Early game challenges, like searching for food or water are replaced by thoughts of “how can I make my base look even better”.
Step 2: Graphics & Sound
Watch 5 to 10 minutes of any video below. If you like what you see and hear, move on to Step 3: Game Evaluation.
Step 3: Game Evaluation
Build your expectations about the game by learning what it offers and how was The Partisan Spy’s experience.
USER INTERFACE
The game has a STANDARD UI with no big changes when compared to other survival games. The in-game menu is divided by categories and the crafting tab by subcategories which helps you quickly find what you need.
The HUD brings the character stats, hotkeys to equip items, and 6 different radial buttons to select and click from.
STORY
The story is REALLY SHORT, it sets the plot of the game, and the expectation is that when unfolded in the future players will understand “the whys and hows” of the backyard.
Still, Grounded core gameplay IS TO SURVIVE, explore and build. Completing story quests unlocks recipes, but it is mostly a bonus for the true accomplishment of surviving at the backyard.
COMMUNITY POTENTIAL
Grounded has everything to build a huge community around it. Its genre is known for its CONTINUOUS CONTENT GENERATION and an open field to creativity.
The updates to come will keep adding novelty to the game and new things to talk about. Added to that, there is a coop mode (still buggy) to play with friends and a creative mode to build freely.
GAMEPLAY MOOD TRACKER
MOOD ANALYSIS
Different from most game reviews, at Grounded my mood started at EAGER and not at NORMAL because of the prior demo experience.
Big expectations were set after the demo and the game delivered it. During the 25 hours of gameplay, my mood was between EAGER and CAN’T STOP PLAYING IT, resulting in a final average of EXCITED.
GRIND FEELING
There is so much to do and discover on Grounded. As hours passed by, the list of things to do just grew bigger. You will have an objective behind every collected resource, insect killed or area explored.
In a game where CREATIVE POSSIBILITIES ARE INFINITE, having any kind of grind feeling is really rare.
LOVED THE MOST
The open-world design and its exploration are incredible. There is always something new to find and be impressed by it.
DISLIKED THE MOST
Some insect attacks could be more clear and precise, especially when fighting the Wolf Spider.
EVALUATION SUMMARY
Minecraft’s first version was released in 2009 and after 11 years, 25 major updates were done to the game. Today, Minecraft has its own universe, with hundreds or thousands of different game modes and still growing. How much of that was seen in 2009?
How much have we seen of Grounded?
All of it? Just a bit of it?
For what has been shown, there is one undeniable fact about Grounded: it has a HUGE PROMISE.
The game appeals to different generations, parents that grew-up watching “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” can easily connect with their kids that love building things. Same time it is cute, can be really scary and challenging. Last but not least, there are 900.000 thousand different kinds of insects in the world. We have seen 15 to 20 of them, maybe that can answer the question: how much have we seen of Grounded?
Play Grounded if you want to be part of a new promise under construction.
Choices & Advice
DON’T BUY IT
IF YOU ARE HAPPY WITH THE SURVIVAL GAME YOU ARE PLAYING.
WAIT TO BUY
IF YOU PREFER TO PLAY A GAME FREE OF BUGS AND WITH MORE STORY CONTENT.
BUY NOW
IF YOU WANT TO START AHEAD AND BE ONE OF THE “FOUNDERS” OF A NEW GAME COMMUNITY.
GAME LIFETIME
+500 HOUR GAME THAT CAN BRING YOU FUN MOMENTS FOR YEARS.
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