Grounded (2022)
Genres:Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
Themes:Action, Survival
Game modes:Single player, Co-operative, Multiplayer
Story:The world is a vast, beautiful and dangerous place – especially when you have been shrunk to the size of an ant. Explore, build and survive together in this first person, multiplayer, survival-adventure. Can you thrive alongside the hordes of giant insects, fighting to survive the perils of the backyard?
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I can't recall exactly what year it was that I first saw the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", but the appeal and childlike wonder that it evokes are clear...What if the familiar world around you suddenly became so much more than it seems in your everyday life? What if a drop of dew on the grass was enough to sustain you all day? What if a simple ant or ladybug suddenly became a fearsome adversary or a dear friend? What if a twig or blade of grass could be used to construct architectural marvels?
Well, if you ever wondered these things, this is the moment to pounce and discover most of them for yourself. You will never look at common garden pests in quite the same way again!
Of course, the reasons for wanting it available on GOG are obvious. This is truly a great multiplayer survival game that deserves to be free of its shackles so that it can be remembered for many years to come, even if Microsoft decides to take it offline.
Since 2002, Metroid Prime was my favorite of all time. In the years following, some games have come close to dethroning it, like Batman Arkham Asylum, System Shock 1, and Ratchet and Clank A Crack In Time. Then, in 2024, Grounded came to Switch. Never intended to be I to the game much, but I bought it because it looked fun. Oh, boy.. In my opinion, this is the best game I have ever played. The only flaw...a complete physical edition. Gog could be the next best thing if I could keep the game safe on backup storage and install it on my Steam Deck whenever I please (and yes, since Obsidian messed up the Switch version after the updates, I bought a Deck solely to play my new favorite game of all time. It only took 23 years). Thanks for listening! Let's hope it comes to gog.
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.
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