Grounded

Grounded is a survival adventure by Obsidian Entertainment that turns an ordinary suburban garden into a vast wilderness. Four teenagers are shrunk to insect size and search between blades of grass, a pond, sandbox, hedges and underground nests for the way back to their normal size.

The garden is not a pure sandbox. Grounded combines exploration, survival and base building with a complete story about the Ominent labs and the cause of the shrinking. The game can be played entirely solo or in online co-op with up to four players.

Grounded launched in Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access on July 28, 2020. Full version 1.0 was released on September 27, 2022 for PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and completed the main story.

On April 16, 2024, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch followed. The same day, "Fully Yoked" arrived as the last planned major content update and brought Ant Queens, New Game+ and additional equipment into the final version, among other things.

Grounded is available natively for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. Since the 2024 platform expansion, the game supports crossplay between Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and PC.

For shared games there are also Shared Worlds: these save games are stored in the cloud and can be continued by approved fellow players, even when the original host is offline.

At its core is the classic survival loop of exploring, gathering, crafting and base building. Plant fibers, insect parts and other garden materials are processed into tools, weapons, armor, supplies and ever larger bases. At the same time, story labs, biome progress and boss fights take you through the backyard.

For builds, you combine weapon and armor upgrades with Mutations and Milk Molars. Creatures react to interference in their habitats and can also attack your own base. "Fully Yoked" expands the permanent endgame loop with three Ant Queens and New Game+: the REMIX.R reshuffles the garden, stronger "infused" creatures appear, and new materials, random trinket properties and further upgrades are added.

Grounded does not rely on a classic series of big paid DLCs for its gameplay expansions. The major content expansions were integrated into the main game as updates. Obsidian explicitly called update 1.4 "Fully Yoked" the last planned major content update; its systems and content are permanently part of the current version.

On PC, Grounded requires at least Windows 10 (64-bit), an Intel Core i3-3225, 4 GB RAM, an Nvidia GTX 650 Ti and 8 GB free storage. Recommended are Windows 11 (64-bit), Intel Core i7-7700K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600, 8 GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB or Radeon RX 470.