The survival genre is virtually undebatable as my favorite genre of game. The constant progression, open-ended exploration, and free-form building are catnip for a Cameron. Well, there’s a subgenre of the survival game genre that is the narrative survival game, the most famous of which are games like Subnautica or The Forest. These games have a much more intentional narrative built in than, say, Minecraft, and wrap a more traditional story with the gameplay trappings of a survival game and often Metroidvania-esque elements of area-gating. Grounded is my personal peak within that subgenre.
Grounded achieves the perfect level of wonder with its world design. You are the size of an ant, and Obsidian did an astounding job of making everything feel and behave exactly how you think it would. Everything is so well and intentionally designed. The machines being made out of the actual materials you had to craft them with, the ways you interact with all the creatures of the yard, and the way that the kids are still kids and are thus still cool with like Milk Molar vitamins and He-Man. Obsidian did a fantastic job of coming up with whatever dumb reason they could to include every survival mechanic you’re used to. Every survival game needs a desert so you can show off your overheating mechanics, well, of course, that’s a sandbox with a sand castle you must explore. Need some kind of volcano equivalent? We’ve got a toppled charcoal grill. Poison swamp? Fumigator got left on.
Everything just feels so well done in its cute little design while also being a great-feeling game. This is one of the star players of the “it's just one of the absolute best of that genre, there's no major emotion to it” category of games on this list.