It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that once you’ve seen one survival-crafting-farming-PvE-mishmash, you’ve seen them all. Rust, Ark, and Minecraft are all titles that stand out in this category for their own inventive reasons. But Grounded, a game that has reached the end of its development cycle, continues to retain the highest quality-to-player ratio in the genre.
Grounded has finally released its Fully Yolked edition, which marks the last version of the game that will ever be. Likely due to its art style being family-friendly and protagonist’s being children, there’s a common misconception that this game is strictly for children. This is not so.
The game can absolutely be played by children. And if there are any parents reading this who approach the topic of gaming with some level of timid skepticism, it can be rationally argued that Grounded is the best game to let your children become accustomed to the hobby, but anyone can play this game and get a ton of high-quality enjoyment out of it.
Keep in mind, the standard for what should qualify as enjoyment is everywhere low by default of it being subjective. But high–quality enjoyment, on this website, is defined as enjoyment with a piece of art that’s strictly of a higher caliber than its peers. To say that Grounded is above its peers in the survival genre would be doing it a disservice.
Grounded is an S-tier game. You’d think that this rating would come from the fact that it’s successfully employed an original idea in its foundations, but actually, the quality of the game is seen in every single facet of its genetic makeup.
The idea of playing as a shrunken protagonist curiously exploring the world through inventive crafting and studying is interesting to begin with, but Grounded’s execution of that theme, in tandem with the overarching storyline you can slowly uncover, is so wildly above the level of quality you’d expect from a title like this that Grounded immediately becomes a gem in the rough.
The quality doesn’t stop in the writing room: the mechanics, from building your bases, to unlocking blueprints through scientific discovery, and obtaining useful foods through farming, the game boasts a relaxing, intuitive design that’s fluid from a feel-y standpoint but also in terms of its pacing in the dreaded aspect of timely progression.
When it comes to combat, Grounded doesn’t cut corners or cheat on the test. It passes with extra credit every time. Playing aggressively is rewarded with a host of armor and weapon options while befriending the wildlife around the player is possible through taming or blending in with certain foes.
TLDR; As is made evident by the reviews of this game, anyone who actually plays Grounded comes out the other side with a great amount of respect for the title. It’s woeful that the limiting factor for this game’s exposure is down to the fact that most players pass it up, assuming that it was made for children and, thus, low quality. Given the amount of time gamers spend on AAA slop these days, it makes for an obvious fact that they should set aside some time for Grounded and have their hours spent on a product far more whole.
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