There’s something poetically terrifying about being one centimetre tall in a world that’s hundreds of square metres wide. And Grounded 2, even in its Early Access state, takes that garden-variety anxiety and cultivates it into a full-blown survival epic.
Obsidian’s original Lilliputian setup was clever and down to earth, sure, but this finds richer pay dirt. It grows in all the right places.
World size, biome variety, combat complexity, base-building freedom. It delivers one of the most rewarding survival loops I’ve had the pleasure of being consumed by (sometimes literally). If the first game was about feeling small in a big backyard, Grounded 2 is about finding empowerment in it. You carve a home, master the food chain, and fight back against nature’s most horrifying horrors with duct tape, elbow grease and a shedload of mushrooms.
Plotting Along the Grassroots
Set shortly after the events of the first game, Grounded 2 drops you back into the honey-I-shrunk-iverse with a new mystery to unravel, new kids to embody, and a much deeper narrative bent than before. While the original game gradually dripped out its campaign over time, this sequel arrives swinging with structured story quests from the get-go. It’s still campy in all the best ways (think: science gone wrong, government conspiracies, evil ants) but there’s more cohesion this time around. New characters bring personality to the peril, and returning ones (like BURG.L) aren’t just there for comic relief. They’re plot pillars.
That said, Grounded 2 still gives players the freedom to ignore the golden path entirely. This is a game where your story is as much about the friends you lose to spider ambushes as it is about the sinister corporation watching from the weeds. There’s enough scripted narrative here to give purpose, but it never oversteps the sandbox.
Bug Bashing and Biome Bonanzas
At its chlorophyll-choked core, Grounded 2 is about survival. But it’s far from standard fare. The gameplay loop remains familiar for genre fans: explore, scavenge, craft, build, repeat. What elevates it is just how thoughtfully everything clicks together. The crafting system has been massively expanded, with a huge variety of materials now gated behind specific enemy drops or rare flora. Want to upgrade your armour? Hope you’ve prepared to get lit up by an fire ant grunt. That tiered challenge creates an ever-present sense of progression and danger.
Combat, meanwhile, has evolved from button-mashing into something far more tactical. Blocking and parrying now play a major role, and enemy behaviour varies wildly across species. Moths, mantises, and mosquitos all fight differently, and some (like the ludicrously terrifying Tiger Mosquito) feel like boss encounters in their own right. Better yet, weapon variety has expanded, with tiered upgrades, elemental modifiers, and new status effects that cater to both solo sneaks and squad-based skirmishes.
Traversal has been meaningfully improved too. Zip-lines return, but now there are bounce pads, gliders, and even tamable critters to ride. There’s an emphasis on verticality, especially in the new forested biome which stretches up into multi-level canopy structures. This is a richer and more fascinating place to snoop through.
Looking Sharp, Running Smooth
Performance-wise, Grounded 2 ran rather ok on Xbox Series X, even in its Early Access incarnation. The game holds its target frame rate comfortably in most areas. Only occasional dips occur during chaotic, multi-bug battles or when loading into new biomes rapidly. Load times are brief, especially with Quick Resume, and the visual fidelity is a big step up from the original.
Textures are sharper, lighting is richer, and there’s a noticeable boost in animation detail, especially on enemy insects. Watching a praying mantis do a threat display before lunging at your poorly fortified mushroom hut is a terrifying, oddly beautiful moment. Dynamic weather adds atmospheric oomph too, with sudden thunderstorms soaking the ground and forcing you to rethink exploration plans.
Importantly, Obsidian’s gone big on accessibility and tweaking. There are FOV sliders, colourblind modes, HUD scaling, and even custom difficulty toggles that let you fine-tune how hard Grounded 2 bites back. Hardcore fans can go permadeath, but newbies can embrace a “mild” experience where survival feels more like backyard camping than Starship Troopers.
Buzzing Soundscapes and Banger Tunes
The audio design deserves special praise. Insects all have distinct vocalisations and movement sounds. This isn’t just flavour; it’s survival-critical information. A distant rustle might be a harmless aphid, or it could be the clicking warning of a Black Widow that’s just clocked your presence. Directional audio is spot-on, especially with headphones, and makes playing in co-op feel like a proper tactical experience.
The soundtrack walks a wonderful line between whimsical sci-fi and ambient unease. New battle tracks are punchy, swelling when a fight kicks off and fading as the final bug leg twitches. And yes, the base-building theme still slaps. (I listen to it every time I have a new IRL Lego set to make.)
Voice acting’s been given a boost too. The playable kids now have more varied quips and context-sensitive banter, which makes them feel more like a real crew rather than flavourless avatars. There’s even branching dialogue and proper cutscenes in the main story, adding to that sense of polish and purpose.
Leafy Highs and Itchy Lows
What truly makes Grounded 2 shine is its sheer generosity. Obsidian hasn’t just added more content. They’ve refined nearly every system. Base-building is more intuitive, with snapping tools and terrain adaptation that doesn’t make you want to scream. Resource management is clearer, and the UI feels more responsive. Inventory Tetris is still a thing, but auto-sorting and hotbar customisation ease the pain.
Multiplayer has seen love too. Dedicated servers are in, player syncing is smoother, and world persistence works far more reliably now. It’s a much better experience for long-haul co-op adventures. And let’s be honest. No game sells the chaos of “three kids screaming while a wolf spider wrecks their crafting bench” quite like this one.
Still, there are a few weeds in the garden. Some bugs (the glitchy kind, not the six-legged ones) occasionally disrupt quests or AI behaviour. Enemy pathfinding isn’t perfect, and I saw more than one beetle get stuck on geometry during my travels. Obsidian has been rapid with patches, but you’re still rolling the dice occasionally. Also, for newcomers, the sheer breadth of mechanics can be overwhelming early on. Grounded 2 doesn’t hold your hand, and a few more tutorials wouldn’t go astray.
The Grass Is Always Greener
Even in Early Access, Grounded 2 feels like a genre heavyweight. It doesn’t just iterate on the original. It boldly expands and retools it into something smarter, tenser, and far more satisfying to master. The survival loop is deeper, the world is wilder, and the quality-of-life upgrades make even the most grizzled bug bashers nod in appreciation.
Is it perfect? Not yet. But Obsidian has shown, through the first game and this sequel’s development, that they listen and iterate fast. If you’ve ever enjoyed games like Valheim, Ark, or Subnautica, you owe it to yourself to get shrunk down and stuck in.
Early Access rarely feels this feature-rich or confident. But Grounded 2? It stands tall.
This review was made possible by a no-strings-attached review code provided by Microsoft AU
