With Grounded 2 heading into early access, we’re incredibly grateful to Xbox for giving us the chance to check out Grounded 2 ahead of launch. This being an early-access launch means that we won’t be providing a fully scored review yet. However, we wanted to share what we think of Grounded 2, and address whether this is more of the same, an upgrade, or something in between. Let’s dive into the weeds and find out!
Game Name: Grounded 2
Platform(s): Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PC
Developer(s): Obsidian Entertainment, Eidos-Montréal
Publisher(s): Xbox Game Studios
Release Date: July 29, 2025 (Early Access)
Grounded 2 is the sequel to Obsidian Entertainment’s 2022 survival action-adventure Grounded, where you’ll play as one of four shrunken characters, who are smaller than most bugs you’d find in your backyard.
The first game in this franchise was a smaller project that was reportedly developed with minimal resources as a passion project at Obsidian. Initially released into early access in 2022, Grounded went on to reach at least 15 million players. Of course, that was helped by being on Xbox Game Pass, but it’s still a number that most games could only dream of ever reaching. Following this success, it appears as though Grounded 2 has been supported with significantly more resources than its predecessor, as Obsidian has shared development duties with Eidos-Montréal.
Interestingly, Eidos-Montréal is also the studio providing supportive development on Playground Games’ upcoming reboot of Fable. It’s possible that Grounded 2 might give us some indications as to why Eidos-Montréal was chosen to also work on Fable.
Grounded 2 Survival Gameplay Changes
Fellow member Scott and I were both familiar with Grounded, and we instantly agreed that one of the major differences in Grounded 2 is the size and scope of the world. Not only is the map larger in scale, but the locations are more varied, while the survival options are expanded. Ah, and the pesky insects you come across are of the meaner variety, especially at night.
As you play the game, you will come across a bunker that houses a research station. This research station will provide upgrades that help you grab more resources by upgrading the tools you’ll have access to, such as stronger shovels, axes, and other utilities that help you chop down stronger grass, weeds, and flowers. How you gain these upgrades remains largely the same as in Grounded; as you explore, you will find raw science, a resource you use to unlock tools, building options, and more.
Of course, gathering resources is key to survival, but you’ll need caution while doing so as you’re not alone. If you get too close to hostile enemies like spiders and mites, bees, and more, they will come after you. And not just for short distances, as we’ve experienced, that some can get fixated on following you a long way across the map if you aren’t fast enough to lose them. Defeat these foes, however, and you’ll be able to analyse their parts for more raw science and then use them in crafting.
It felt that the rate of progression seems to be much faster here in Grounded 2, or at least in the early game. Eventually, you will hit some areas that require grinding for resources or gear to reach your next story objective. So, Grounded 2 might not be for you if you were hoping to just play through the golden path.
Surviving can also hinder your progress, but not because of an issue with the system itself. A system that, early on, appears to be largely unchanged from the first game; the need to eat and drink periodically to survive. Find yourself too low on water or food, and a timer will appear that will count down to your death. To combat this, you’ll need to kill certain bugs and cook the meat, while drinks come from the form of raindrops you’ll come across while exploring.
However, the problem we’ve noticed is that there’s no real punishment for death in Grounded 2. Sure, you drop your backpack and the resources that you’ve stuffed into it, but as long as you retrieve it before you die again, everything is fine. Or, at least on normal difficulty, which we played on during our time with the game so far.
For those that don’t want to deal with the survival aspects at all, there is a creative mode, similar to that of Minecraft allows you to build whatever you want.
Playing In Solo vs Co-op
Now, let’s get this out of the way… You can play Grounded 2 solo if you want, but we don’t recommend it. The time it takes to gather resources dramatically increases, which has an overly adverse effect on your rate of progression.
Even in co-op, Scott and I experienced bouts of difficulties as I’d end up using the resources to build, quicker than he could collect them, or vice versa. We fully recommend that if you plan on playing Grounded 2, you embrace the full co-op experience. Despite this, Grounded 2 is an absolute delight to play and build in.
I even had the opportunity to play with staff members of Xbox Era, while diving into the world of Grounded 2, and what we achieved with three players in just a couple of hours was amazing. Deadly Headley and I were on collecting resources duty, while Jon ‘Sikamikanico’ Clarke was building our base, and it’s this sort of co-operation that makes the game shine.
Performance and Stability in Early Access
Depsite the game only heading into early access, we felt that it expands on everything that made the first game fun while giving players even more ways to explore and survive. What really impressed me is how it carries over the original’s accessibility features, making this easily one of the most approachable early access titles I’ve played at launch. Performance-wise, at least for us, the experience was solid on PC. Neither of us encountered any difficulties on arriving at 60FPS or above at higher resolutions with max settings, and it’s clear that, despite being this early on that the game is optimized and scales well.
However, outside of framerate, Grounded 2 is currently in somewhat of a buggy state on PC, and I don’t mean the good kind. For example, multiple times drops of rain wouldn’t fall from the grass when hit, leaving them suspended in mid air, often unreachable. We also experienced multiple issues trying to join other players’ worlds or being disconnected from sessions. These are issues that developers are aware of and working on, but it’s worth keeping in mind, as we don’t currently know if these issues will be fixed before you get your hands on the game.
We’ve listed our computer specs below, just in case you were interested.
Jordan’s PC Specs: Intel I9-14900KF, NVIDIA GTX 4090 24GB VRAM (Founder’s Edition), 96 GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000 MHz RAM.
Scott’s PC Specs: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, NVIDIA RTX 4080 Super 16GB VRAM, 32 GB of Corsair DDR5 6000 MHz RAM
How We Feel about Grounded 2 So Far
Grounded 2 is a fun experience and one that is highly recommended if you liked the first game. Just be sure to grab a friend or two to help you with the survival and crafting elements, as many hands make light work. You don’t want to be the only one trying to cut down dandelions for the weed stems, or it might take a while just chopping down dandelions before you can start your base construction.
This is obviously based on Grounded 2 in its current state at the launch of early access, and while we can’t yet give a final score. We can confidently say that if you have Game Pass, you should give Grounded 2 a try; it’s one of the more approachable survival games out there and perfect for chilling out with friends.
Review Disclosure Statement: A copy of Grounded 2 was provided to us by Xbox for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.
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