Honestly I think this is best game in it's genre. It's exceptionally good and the only other game remotely close to this quality level is Subnautica, though for different reasons.

First, the hook/concept is incredibly fun. Being small and in a garden might sound rather bland with little to play with, but there is so much magical and creative stuff going on in this setting! Cutting down blades of grass to use for building settlements, chewing on mouldy old hot-dog bits the size of meals, diving into anthills which become massive cavern networks, re-purposing a sandpit for a massive desert environment, a small pond becomes a vast lake, mining amber chunks from a tree. Everything about it is wonderful.

That counts doubly so for the games creatures and bosses: Ladybirds and bees are ridiculously cute and fun to listen to, birds in the garden feel like godzilla-esque titans to be avoided. Every living thing I found I was fascinated by and was desperate to discover more common garden critters by the end (Especially worms! Come on!) Meanwhile the devs do NOT cop out with the spiders and other dangerous creepy crawlies, which I was so happy to see. They are utterly horrifying in the best of ways and really tap into that primal sense of feeling like small prey in a vast ecosystem. I was already fan of the films and particularly PS1 games for "A Bugs Life" and "Toy Story 2" when I was growing up, so I knew I'd get a kick out of this miniaturisation idea, and Obsidian then went knocked it out of the park.

They did excellently with mechanics and overall polish, too. This genre is well known for having it's fair share of jank and poor tuning. If you're coming from the ARK series you'll know exactly what I mean. By contrast grounded is an extremely well polished PROPER game. First, the actual rendering, lighting, controls and environment are slick, stylish, rock solid and fun to navigate. No awkward pop-in or getting stuck in the environment or enemies moving oddly.

But perhaps most importantly the actual game-play is coherent and well made. The perks and item systems are well thought out. Base building controls, which are tricky to execute, are reasonably good. Gearing and progression is fun. Upgrades feel really satisfying and tightly tuned - the kind of tuning you can tell only comes from a LOT of play testing. It can seem grindy at first, but soon you'll have access to new tools and capabilities massively increasing your ability to gather resources. Fun! It's collectables are well dispersed around the map without being so overwhelming it feels like a ubi-game. And all these mechanics are expertly folded into the setting in clever ways. Grabbing globules of water from grasses to hydrate, using tree sap for lighting torches, the works.

The only element of the game that didn't click for me, sadly, was the story. I really enjoy how much the playable characters interact and that there IS a story here, don't get me wrong. It's another example of how professional and feature complete this thing is. It's just that it's very clearly aiming at young adolescents or perhaps even smaller children, with milquetoast and tedious characters abound. If it was at least goofy or funny I'd be fine with it, but there is no real sense of humour here - instead the game takes itself far too seriously and is often preoccupied with parental instructions reminding us to eat our vegetables and the power of teamwork or whatever. It's not that the impulse is wrong, children should be taught these things, but as an adult it's boring tune-out material at the best or even patronising at the worst. Their decision to tie this sort of story and dialogue to a game with such horrifying caves and monsters, in a genre that tends to skew a little older, seems like a mistake. I wouldn't realistically recommend this game to a small child in the first place! I guess it was just a demo grab? Your mileage may vary.

This one small element aside, grounded is fantastic. Genuinely. Even the post-launch updates have been great! I have immense respect for the talent at Obisidan and I think it's awesome they have this one survival entry in their catalogue and they absolutely smashed the competition with it.

Great stuff. If you haven't played you're missing out.