Grounded
| Developer: Obsidian Entertainment | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Xbox Game Studios | Sound: |
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| Year: 2022 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Action-adventure | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 to 4 simultaneous | Rating: |
7/10 | |
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
End of the intro!
After the lengthy spiels I’ve spouted about Subnautica, I’ll try to avoid repetition, as almost everything applies to Grounded as well. These are two fairly similar survival games in terms of standardized mechanics (hunger and thirst management, resource gathering, equipment upgrades, base building). Grounded even followed a similar development pattern (two years in early access), despite a considerably higher budget (the studio belongs to Microsoft). Only the setting changes: less water; and kids, shrunk down to insect size, left to fend for themselves in the middle of a rather neglected garden…
The main differences from Subnautica are the multiplayer mode and the emphasis on combat, especially melee, including an intuitive and enjoyable blocking system for those with a sense of rhythm. For the others, for me, the game provides a “barbarian” specialisation, a spiked club and a box of plasters.
The formula is spiced up with a pinch of role-playing, as you’re offered a choice of weapons and armour, displaying different attack and defence statistics, in combination with passive talents (“mutations”) to unlock gradually, which encourage you to specialise your character according to the usual archetypes (archer, tank, mage, rogue).
The beginning is very engaging, thanks to the care and creativity with which the garden is composed, riddled with everyday utensils, empty cans, toys, all sorts of tools … and aggressive critters every ten metres (pardon, centimetres). One takes great pleasure in exploring this rich and hostile world. What a shame, however, that weather effects (rain, wind) weren’t implemented.
The price of multiplayer mode is that it reduces the attention paid to dialogues and story. Moreover, early access to weapons (a bow and arrows in particular) means it doesn’t feel as tense as Subnautica. Nevertheless, one quickly identifies the most dangerous predator, the wolf spider, which is not only capable of killing us in one hit, runs faster than us and poisons us, but also jumps so high that we don’t feel safe anywhere. I remember those moments of panic when blades of grass would start rustling, a sign that a creature larger than myself was prowling … and the sigh of relief that followed upon observing a harmless ladybird emerging from the grass tuft…
End of compliments!
I come away frustrated from my long experience with this game, mainly due to the lack of effort put into ergonomics by the developers. You might say we’ve seen worse, and I’m aware that the studio concentrated its resources on other projects (The Outer Worlds and Avowed). True, but the concept was so promising. Don’t you think it would have been worth being perfectionist? Making it a classic?
First grievance: the interface is so poorly designed, everything is so badly explained. For instance, it’s impossible to understand the effect of mutations without searching the Internet. Plus, inventory management irritates me tremendously. No way to split a stack of items, forced to destroy useless items one by one, and in several clicks (a collection filter would have been quite useful). I think I’ve thrown away enough ant heads and weevil noses to cover every square centimetre of the garden. This naturally ends up annoying me and colours my criticism!
Furthermore, the “quest” system is barely developed, and rather an inconvenience that adds to the numerous dispensable indicators cluttering our screen. Speaking of navigation points, how does one make them disappear? By opening the map and clicking on markers, one by one. But while some will disappear, others won’t. Others spontaneously reappear after each restart!
Then, the “construction” component proves to be bothersome. The game lets you place a structure in certain spots and not others, arbitrarily. You’re allowed to rotate an element at certain angles, not others, and it’s impossible to place an object outside an invisible “grid”, which greatly limits creative options.
Special mention to bugs of all kinds, the “friendly” ones, such as water droplets and aphids levitating after cutting the grass blade they were perched on … and the much more annoying ones, like desynchronisation with other players, leading to disconnections, getting stuck in scenery and more generally, unpleasant latency.
I would add a personal complaint—I don’t know whether it’s down to the developers or the 3D engine or my notorious incompetence; I never managed to get used to the way of jumping in this game. The character has this propensity to bounce off obstacles, the jumps always seem either too short or too long. The “run” function seems to trigger only when it feels like it, just like the “parachute”, which leads me to repeatedly fall into the void.
Like a good old stubborn git, I ended up showing my defiance towards the game by obstinately refusing to comply with the countless jumping puzzles (things to fetch at height, jumping from branch to branch). I circumvent them by building enormous scaffolding instead. Or how to trade an exasperating exercise for lengthy, tedious work…
I’ll conclude with what I consider the most detrimental shortcoming: the pathfinding (how creatures are programmed to move from point A to point B). It’s not right that the vast majority of crawling insects get stuck on a twig, or let themselves be shot at without moving by a player perched on an object. The immersion is completely ruined.
Then there’s the regular attacks on your base by hordes of insects (accompanied by martial music), but the critters are incapable of finding their way to my base (the central oak), and these sequences always end by themselves in general indifference, after an unspecified countdown (of variable duration). The only time the “raid” was actually felt, it came from the sky. A swarm of mosquitoes destroyed part of my hut. What did that add, anyway? Only the frustration of having to rebuild…
Ultimately, Grounded leaves me with the impression of being a generic “pastime” game, when it could have been so much more. I regret the developers’ lack of ambition (or more likely, the producers’). My second hobby horse would be the even more glaring lack of standards from players/consumers, but that’ll be for another diatribe. My herbal tea’s ready.
Oh, I’ve found where they put in the most effort: the promotional videos… No fewer than eight! Superb ones, at that.
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