| #32 | Grounded |
|---|---|
| guessed by | no one |
| platform | Xbox Series |
| release year | 2022 |
| developer/publisher | Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios |
| genre | survival, crafting/building |
| links | Wikipedia |
I was kinda sad when Microsoft bought Obsidian, because they were making good games, and I thought that moe would make them inaccessible to me. But I got over it, got an Xbox and could play Grounded. And the mix from survival with crafting and exploring to gain access to more stuff and push the plot forward worked really well for me.
Basically you play as one of four teens in the 90s, that were shrunk by an experiment and landed in the backyard. And the small and familiar space turns into a horribly dangerous big world, once you are the size of an ant. Luckily you can pick up stones and other stuff, slurp icky water... or better dew drops manufacture a spear and hunt down some bug to make a tasty bug steak. And then you craft an axe to cut down some grass and build yourself a castle.
The game has an ongoing plot with a misunderstood scientist who only wanted to explore the shrinking stuff and some other things. But you can explore the plot at your own pace, as you can any time stop and build or expand your base. Or bases. One needs more than one, after all this backyard is gigantic.
Night time gets terrifying, with lower visibility, all the strange noises and hunters on the prowl. The ones that will make you shit your pants are the spiders, these are really terrifying foes. Running into a spider while not expecting anything bad and just exploring can be a nasty surprise.
You can explore the in some places really beautiful garden, find out the secrets of Dr. Wendell Tully and Ominent practical Technologies, build your palace or just goof around. The game supports coop online multiplayer, which I as usual did not try as I don't like multiplayer most of the time. But the game is completely fine to be played in single player.
The garden contains a surprising amount of different environments and as a few meters are a major travel, you probably want to build at least minor bases in different places to spend the night and store food.
Even though I certainly didn't expect a game like Grounded from Obsidian, it certainly is fun and convinces me even further of Obsidians qualities. Pentiment is next to check out, although it comes to late for this years list.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8fO-eTk25k&ab_channel=IGN
