Originally released in early access in July 2020, Grounded takes the survival genre popularized by games like Ark: Survival Evolved and condenses it down into one ant-sized package, tasking players with surviving in the wilderness of someone’s back garden. With a delightfully bright art style, Grounded manages to achieve a much more light-hearted tone than its competition, while its mechanics still retain the sense of urgency that makes the genre so compelling. Since its release, Obsidian has updated Grounded countless times, with a good handful of those updates adding masses of content such as new weapons, building mechanics, companions, and enemies.
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Shroom & Doom
The first real step in making Grounded a full game and beginning the transition out of early access, the Shroom and Doom update hit the game in July 2021, soon after Xbox’s E3 presentation. Acting as the first major update since the game first released, Shroom and Doom shifted focus from fixing technical issues to adding new content, much of which had been highly requested by fans.
One of these new features was the addition of pets. By taming some tiny aphids and weevils, players could nab themselves a companion. For solo players, these pets were a great help in taking on Grounded’s more challenging foes, being able to dish out a decent amount of damage and distract enemies.
This update also saw the game put more of an emphasis on its building elements, giving players some new materials to build structures with. Players would be given access to some new mushroom items which, when grown, could be boiled down and transformed into bricks and cement-like paste. Some new building mechanics were also introduced, such as the ability to flip blocks.
The Shroom and Doom update also added Grounded’s first boss. Called the Broodmother, this gigantic spider needed to be lured out of her hiding place with a specially-created BLT, and once out in the open, players would need to put aside their fear and take down the monumental beast.
Hot and Hazy
In October 2021, Grounded received another huge update, this time titled Hot and Hazy. Being even bigger than the Shroom and Doom update, Hot and Hazy added a whole new Sandbox biome to the game, along with enemy revamps for the original Haze area. Some smaller areas, such as the Trash Heap and Picnic Table, were also added to the game.
New weapons and armor were also added to the game with the Hot and Hazy update, alongside a new armor mechanic whereby each piece of gear has a specific type which determines how fast stamina is regained while using it. The weapon system was also reworked, making some critters more vulnerable to certain types of weapons. This update also gave players the ability to upgrade their tools, and add mutations to their gear and weapons.
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Into the Woods
Dropping in February of this year, Grounded’s Into the Woods update was another gigantic offering. This update added three large areas including the BBQ Spill, which threw hot coals onto the sandbox, the Shed Surroundings, which received a bunch of new weapons and items, and the Termite Dungeon, which could be found in the depths of a pile of branches.
This update added 11 new creatures to Grounded, including a range of termites, ladybirds, spiders and more. A healthy number of new craftable items were also introduced, alongside new Field Station functionality where players could use them to survey locations for resources. Players could also now use their hands as binoculars, called “PEEP.Rs,” to zoom in and mark targets or points of interest.
The Bugs Strike Back
The most recent large-scale update Grounded has received is The Bugs Strike Back update. Released just last month, this update adds some interesting new mechanics that change up Grounded’s gameplay quite a bit. For a start, some Grounded AI behavior has been tweaked, making enemies much more aggressive and persistent. Now, when the player starts a fight with a particular species, they’ll not only follow the player back to their base, but they’ll also start launching counter-attacks on the base if they’ve been aggroed enough.
Thankfully, players now have a whole plethora of defensive structures and items that should help to ward off the oncoming swarms of bugs. Amongst these new defensive structures are two new turret builds, the first of which is the Pebblet Turret, which launches projectiles at a rapid rate towards enemies. The other turret is named the Pollen Turret, and fires out immobilizing gas that stuns all in its way. The Pollen Turret is lethal towards flying enemies, as it knocks them straight out of the sky. On top of this, a new Explosive Burr trap is also available, which simply explodes as soon as an enemy walks over it.
The PEEP.R tool has also received an upgrade in this update. Now, when a player marks out an enemy type for the first time, they’ll receive a Creature Card which details all the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. These Creature Cards also keep track of how many times the player has defeated an enemy of that type.
The Bugs Strike Back update also brought an armor upgrading system to Grounded, allowing players to increase their armor’s efficiency with resources. Upgrading an armor to +5 will also unlock two diverging upgrade paths known as the Bulky Path, and the Sleek Path. The Bulky Path increases the armor’s durability by a whopping 10% per level, while the Sleek Path only increases it by 5%, but does add a status effect to the piece.
Grounded is available now in Early Access for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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