Grounded is the New Sea of Thieves (And Why That’s Bad)

Obsidian Entertainment’s Grounded has been making the rounds on the internet as the new survival game to play with friends. The game promises Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!-style fun as players team up to survive a world of spiders, ladybugs, and starvation, and based on the trailers and gameplay on offer so far, Grounded delivers on some of those aspects.

That said, it’s hard to ignore the telltale similarities to a lot of games that have come out in the past couple of years which made similar promises. Games like Sea of Thieves showed players a whole wide world to play in at launch, only for it to fall a little bit short once the game was actually in player’s hands.

When players drop into the world of Grounded, it seems like there is an infinite amount to do, but after several hours of gameplay, it becomes clear that the world is as shallow as it is small. Though there are lots of separate activities to partake in, none of them last that long, and most of them rely on the novelty of something new as opposed to the depth of something long-term.

What’s Wrong With Grounded & What It Needs Next

A perfect example of this is Grounded’s story mode, which players can complete in about half an hour. At the moment, there is no conclusion to the story aside from players knowing it was done. The game is early access at the moment, but that doesn’t change the fact that players who were looking for a story mode or use stories to direct their progress in survival games are going to end up disappointed and wondering what they can do with their time in Grounded.

Additionally, Grounded doesn’t have a deep pool of content for players to interact with, especially as Grounded’s arachnophobia mode turns some of the game’s content into blobs that barely exist at all. By the time players have had several hours to mess around in and explore Grounded’s world, they are going to realize that they’re out of new experiences to find. Sea of Thieves had a similar problem at launch, where entertaining moment-to-moment gameplay diminishes as players experience it again and again. Playing with friends can help extend this enjoyment somewhat, but not for long.

Grounded is an early-access title which means there is more content coming, and games like The Forest and Sea of Thieves itself have solved content issues by adding in new features with future updates. That doesn’t mean Grounded doesn’t have problems, but it does mean these issues may get addressed in the coming months as Obsidian releases more and more content for the game. Players around the world are still having fun with Grounded, but there is much more content, story and polish needed if the game is going to take off.

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