Playing the first Grounded game during its Early Access period was an interesting experience. My friends may not love survival games, but this one had me firmly in its grasp for hours upon hours. Fast forward to 2025, and Grounded 2 has me feeling excited yet conflicted.
Grounded 2 is a direct continuation of the first game. Following its opening, which summarizes the prequel’s story, the aftermath, and present-day events leading up to you taking control of your playable character, you’ll wake up inside an Ominent lab and quickly realize that you’ve, once again, shrunken down to the size of an ant. This time, you’re at a now ruined Brookhallow Park, and your goal is to figure out why you’re small again and what new challenges are afoot.
The first thing I noticed upon starting my playthrough was how beautiful this game is. Grounded’s cartoonish style is what hooked me into playing the first game, and having that still present was reassuring. That said, the added details in nearly every aspect, from the ambience and lighting to micro-details in plants, bugs, and items, made the first few minutes of the experience that much more jaw-dropping. That is, until you actually play the game.
With Grounded 2 being in Early Access, I wasn’t expecting it to have every feature of the first game, especially since it has plenty of time to expand leading up to its full release. That said, seeing that most of its items and structures were identical to Grounded was surprising. I was fine with the bugs being the same, since we’re in the same geographical area as the prequel. But, having the same sequence of analyzing random objects, making a workbench, and farming ants with a spear made me feel like I was still in the first game.
Initially, I quite liked this. Having a sense of familiarity felt nice, especially since it allowed me to focus on the storyline rather than learning new mechanics and navigating the environment. Some key differences, such as the addition of buggies to ride around on bugs and the Omni-Tool that combines four tools in one, changed things enough that I was excited to see exactly what was in store in this second game. The story gets much more interesting as you go, but I couldn’t help but compare the similarities between the two titles.
Overall, my enjoyment of Grounded 2 depended largely on my desire to continue its storyline and see how Max, Hoops, Willow, and Pete would react to everything years later. They may not be adults yet, but with them being slightly older and having already experienced the events of the first game, their personalities naturally reflect that. They’re still childish and carefree, but you can immediately sense their dread over the situation alongside their determination to understand what’s going on.
If you’re here for the story or the satisfaction of taming and riding around the map on an ant, Grounded 2 has you covered in spades. If you want a completely different gameplay experience, you won’t find that here. At least, not yet.
I’m optimistic to see how Grounded 2 will shape up over its Early Access period. The original Grounded changed drastically over its two-year EA phase, with most of its in-game regions taped off, a small portion of the items that are available now, and polish in nearly every aspect. Comparatively, Grounded 2 is starting off strong and has the potential to stand tall as one of the best and most impressive sequels we’ve seen in recent years. Whether it lives up to it will depend on how much feedback the community will provide and how far Obsidian wants to push the game’s boundaries beyond what we’ve seen so far.
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