Grounded by Obsidian

[Dark Drakan]

An interesting looking title that I came across a couple of months ago that is being developed by a small branch of Obsidian Entertainment (13 employees started the project) and it is published by Xbox Game Studios. Clearly inspired by such things as Honey I Shrunk the Kids, A Bugs Life, Antz and was a passion project of a small team inside Obsidian.

Single player and up to 4 player co-op survival title.

Grounded - Story Trailer

How RPG studio Obsidian ended up making a survival game

The world is a vast, beautiful and dangerous place – especially when you have been shrunk to the size of an ant. Explore, build and survive together in this first person, multiplayer, survival-adventure. Can you thrive alongside the hordes of giant insects, fighting to survive the perils of the backyard?

Due to launch into Early Access and Xbox Game Pass July 28th

Steam Store

Game Informer had an exclusive coverage segment on it over the last month which can be found here.​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Grounded has topped the Steam best-sellers list and proved a hit big on Twitch

Grounded launched into Early Access yesterday, and it’s gone straight to the top of the Steam best-sellers list and very close to the peak of the Twitch charts. Grounded hit more than 250,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch, which topped League of Legends viewer numbers. It also beat out the Destroy All Humans! remaster in sales, which also launched at the same time and took the number 1 spot.

It seems that Obsidians risk is paying off for them and the 13 employees whose passion project this was. They have now hinted that content updates are coming very soon to the game and that it will be crafted based on player feedback.​

 

[Dark Drakan]

More than one million players have played Grounded so far in early access

As a concept that looked like a big risk for a company who doesn't usually create games in this genre or use this business model it looks to be paying off for Obsidian Entertainment.

During the early access phase for Grounded, players are actively encouraged to provide feedback during the early development process, and content will be added based on said feedback.​

 

[Quistrix]

I tried it a few times and while I like what they tried to do and I totally get that it's very early days I had my fill pretty fast. The spiders are very broken. They can clip through walls and spiders aren't meant to be tangoed with early on so it kinda ruined the experience. I'll just stick with Ark for now.

The ladybugs are cute tho. :wub:

 

[Gikoku]

This game has so much potential, sky is the limit but they have a long way to go. But as a foundation for things to come; I absolutely love it.

They mentioned on Twitter that they plan to do major updates to the game once every month from now on, with the next one being August 27th I believe?

 

[Steve]

I watched my son play it a few days ago on the Xbone... think it was the tutorial mission or something, as we had to repair some sort of array atop on old record player. Didn't look too bad. We made a spear out of grass blades and got rekt by a giant spider.

I haven't followed the game enough to understand the hype - is the big pull meant to be that it's being developed by Obsidian? My son and I didn't really see anything remarkable about the game.

 

[Gikoku]

I watched my son play it a few days ago on the Xbone... think it was the tutorial mission or something, as we had to repair some sort of array atop on old record player. Didn't look too bad. We made a spear out of grass blades and got rekt by a giant spider.

I haven't followed the game enough to understand the hype - is the big pull meant to be that it's being developed by Obsidian? My son and I didn't really see anything remarkable about the game.

I believe it being developed by Obsidian is just a part of it, but for awhile all the hype was around "Have you ever wanted to experience 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids' firsthand, but with your friends?" It does it well enough, but the story isn't finished yet and the rest of the game just seems to be a taste of the whole pie for now.

 

[Dark Drakan]

I watched my son play it a few days ago on the Xbone... think it was the tutorial mission or something, as we had to repair some sort of array atop on old record player. Didn't look too bad. We made a spear out of grass blades and got rekt by a giant spider.

I haven't followed the game enough to understand the hype - is the big pull meant to be that it's being developed by Obsidian? My son and I didn't really see anything remarkable about the game.

Its been made by 10 people from Obsidian its mainly the Honey I Shrunk The Kids vibe/theme that is the draw and it will have a full story when it reaches full development.

It was actually a passion project that a handful of Obsidian wanted to do (hence early access & tiny dev team) and they want to do monthly updates and craft it based on what fans want until full release next year. Its a refreshing twist on the usual survival game formula that has been churned out for years with a few stand out success stories.

I think the main thing I was impressed with was the base foundations are all in, cross platform play & co-op works out of the gate and the AI is already pretty decent. With some bug fixes and physics tweaks for the collision issues a lot of the janky clipping issues will be fixed fast.

It does it well enough, but the story isn't finished yet and the rest of the game just seems to be a taste of the whole pie for now.

From what I heard just before release they estimated it was only 15-20% of game is available at the moment.

spiders aren't meant to be tangoed with early on so it kinda ruined the experience.

Many believe that upon viewing the game files its a minor spawning issue and they spawn a little close to the tutorial area at the moment. Also saw someone manage to get inside the hedgerow in the south of the map and the BroodMother Spider is in there. Many are hoping for dungeon like areas and boss fights with larger creatures on the horizon.

 

[Dark Drakan]

PATCH 0.1.1 HAS BEEN RELEASED

Obsidian have just released patch 0.1.1 which includes some changes and fixes to enhance gameplay.

Changes/fixes that you will see made to the game:

PATCH NOTES

Spoiler: Patch Notes

MAJOR ISSUES

• Made changes to make finding, joining, and hosting games with friends more reliable.​
• We adjusted the handling of joining game failure (the game is full, the game no longer exists, etc.).​
• Added a way to allow players to resolve the issue of the game logging the player into the wrong Xbox Live account on PC.​
• Fixed issues with Windows 7 and Windows 8 users crashing when attempting to login. Those users should be able to load into the game after updating.​
• Fixed crash when saving or loading and the "Autosave Count" number in the options is set to 0.​
• We have implemented a fix for players who were getting stuck on the welcome popup screen and unable to move past it.​
• Fixed characters not being saved occasionally in save games. NOT RETROACTIVE: Unfortunately we are not able to bring back lost items, but hopefully this fix will prevent this from occurring in the future. If you still experience this after the update, please contact us directly at support@obsidian.net so we can gather information to continue our investigation.​

GAME​

• Players will no longer be permanently stuck in spider webs after destroying them.​
• Fixed BURG.L disappearing in some games if you attacked him and saved and loaded. RETROACTIVE: BURG.L will appear in the games he disappeared from, allowing players to interact with him again.​
• Restoring save games that have lost progression state (ex. Oak Tree Lab doors no longer opening for players, Mysterious Machine not allowing players to hit buttons to finish the quest, time being frozen, etc.) RETROACTIVE: After updating the game, players should be able to load into their game and continue to progress. Should this issue happen again, logging out of the save and then loading back in should resolve the issue and allow you to continue playing.​
• Fixed an issue with endless larva spawning over time. Larva were also spawning each time a spike trap was built. This update will not remove the larva that has already spawned into games, but the larva respawn rate has been fixed.​
• Fixed issue where all item durability in your inventory incorrectly shows "full" when loading back into a game as a client.​
• We implemented a fix for an issue where games that were saved before Raw Science started spawning prevented Raw Science from appearing later. It also included an update for a problem with Raw Science spawning after analyzing and having additional players collecting it on join. Due to this, players may notice that the starting Raw Science they previously collected has respawned.​
• Fixed crashes when loading a saved game dealing with ant colonies.​
• Removed kill Mosquito Burg.L quest NOT RETROACTIVE: Players will need to speak with BURG.L to abandon this quest. Then, during the next in-game day, you will be able to talk to BURG.L again to accept a new quest.​
• Found the cause behind the issue where attempting to cook/dry an item slot with no item in it would crash the game.​
• Found a fix for the occasional crash caused by dew drops that have items stuck in them. It also included a fix for dew drops exploding and causing a major FPS drops on clients.​
• Fixed issue where clients dragging items from one slot in a storage basket to another would not reflect on the host causing item desync.​
• Disabled storage baskets and smoothie stations from being able to be interacted with by multiple players at the same time until other desync issues we are working on are resolved.​
• Block Tutorial now only plays once.​
• Tuned Wolf Spider hearing and investigation AI to creep on the player less frequently.​

UI​

• UI changes made to the SCA.B OS screen.​
• Fixed trail markers not showing up on the map, and an additional fix added to prevent the game crashing if you tried to navigate them in the legend.​
• Reduced screen edge shimmer on Xbox One and Xbox One S under load.​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Grounded reveals details for its upcoming major content update​

The Shroom and Doom Update coming June 30th​

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[Dark Drakan]

Grounded – Full Release Announcement Trailer - Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022​

The full release version will introduce a full campaign - playable either solo or co-operatively - new armour recipes, new weapons, a giant Mantis, and more when it arrives on Xbox and PC.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Grounded 1.0 | Everything That’s Coming To The Full Release​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Grounded Wins Xbox GOTY At Golden Joystick Awards 2022​

Obsidians passion project has proved to be a huge success after announcing back in Feb 2022 that the game has reached over 10 million players and now it has also won Xbox Game of The Year 2022 too.

Grounded 1.0 was officially released in September after having spent the past couple of years on Game Preview/early access and has been positively received by critics and fans alike across Xbox and PC.​

 

[Dark Drakan]

Grounded Holiday Update 1.1.0

Obsidian Entertainment recently celebrated winning the Xbox Game of the Year Award and have now hit another milestone in time for Christmas. They announced yesterday that 15 million players (2 million extra players in 1 month) have now stepped foot in the backyard and also revealed a new holiday update full of new features and quality of life improvements.

Shyla, Obsidian's Social Media Manager, shared all the new base items to craft, updated features and more in the below Vlog.

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[Dark Drakan]

Very late on this one as I thought I had posted about it already but one of my favourite survival games Grounded received a big update last month known as the 'Super Duper' Game Update which brought the game to version 1.2.

With it came many quality-of-life changes, over a hundred new items to craft, a brand new feature regarding Base Coziness, and everyones most hated garden creature... wasps. But first, Along with that they introduced an item duplication machine and the game is also now Steam Deck Verified.
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GROUNDED Super Duper Game Update 1.2​