IN A VISUALLY STUNNING ADVENTURE
GROUNDED (PEFGI 12) XBOX ONE, XBOX X/S, PC
★★★★✩
NOT long after my dad took us to see Honey I Shrunk the Kids, I remember having nightmares about being confronted by a giant ant.
In my dream, I’d be playing in the local park with our little dog Bobbie, who inexplicably began to bark. I’d turn to find an ant bearing down on me, its mandibles snapping and snarling, long, hairy legs flicking out.
I’d wake up with my heart racing, the dream leaving me with a sense of unease that wasn’t easy to shake.
And it was this exact feeling that returned to me when my character found themselves confronted by a sizable ant in Grounded.
This survival game has been in early access for more than two years – amassing more than five million players in the first six months alone – but the full experience, version 1.0, has only just been released.
Set in 1990, it will surprise no-one to learn that Grounded has been heavily influenced by films like Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and A Bug’s Life.
Unlike the film though, part of this game involves you trying to discover how you ended up as a pocket-sized version of yourself, and – more importantly – how you can return to your normal self.
The setting is stunning, shafts of sunlight between giant blades of grass, leaves and flower petals richly textured so it feels like you can reach out and touch them.
A synthwave, retro soundtrack gives off a Stranger Things vibe as the scene is set and you find yourself in a back garden that looks and feels more like a jungle.
As you’d expect from a survival game, lots of scavenging is needed. From the off, prompts highlight items you need to start gathering, from sprigs and pebblets to various plant fibers and sap.
All of these supplies can be used to craft bigger and better items to help you on your quest for normality, clues to which can be found in tiny labs scattered around the garden.
You also need to make sure you eat and drink enough, finding water that looks more inviting than the murky puddles of brown sludge which seem to be everywhere.
It’s not just oversized baseballs and dandelions that inhabit the garden however, there’s also myriad creepy crawlies which have a size advantage over you.
The small development team at Obsidian Entertainment spent hours researching the movements and characteristics of dozens of different insects creating realistic bugs that live in the garden wilderness.
While it’s an incredible achievement, for anyone with a phobia – especially of spiders – this could be incredibly triggering.
The result is that this feels like a living, breathing ecosystem. Fuzzy bees buzz through the air on pollen gathering missions, while ants – who ignore you unless you encroach on their habitat – wander around hunting smaller creatures like weevils to feed their hungry hordes. As beautiful as it looks, it would be impossible to take this game too seriously – and luckily the developers haven’t. Grounded’s script is dripping in humour, with moments of glorious absurdity.
That said, for a game that’s been early access for two years, there are still quite a few bugs – of the software kind – lurking in the shadows.
I experienced numerous crashes that kicked me back to the dashboard, items don’t always fit together perfectly when you’re crafting, and moving the walls of your base sometimes resulted in a jittery mess.
But that aside, I had an enormous amount of fun here. Challenges are rewarding, and there’s a childlike joy to exploring a world that is both familiar and utterly alien.
It’s even helped me appreciate the humble ant – now if I could just get over my fear of drowning in a giant bowl of cheerios ...
YOUR TINY HERO BATTLES TO SURVIVE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FOOD CHAIN
There’s... myriad creepy crawlies which now have a size advantage over you
BUY IT: £34.99 from store. steampowered.com, or it’s available on XBOX Games Pass