Grounded is the next game from Obsidian

In unexpected news from X019, we now know the next project the talented development team over at Obsidian are working on; colourful survival game Grounded, where size doesn’t matter.

The reveal trailer shows a world where you play as an ant-sized person, using spider-webs as trampolines, being chased by lady-bugs and fighting off other insects with your friends while building a base and exploring with your friends.

It’s an interesting route for Obsidian to take. Their success as a development team has leaned largely on their RPG sensibilities, particularly the writing, dialogue and choices when it comes to conversations. A survival game – which can be played in both first and third person – doesn’t necessarily lend itself to this style of gameplay, and will focus on a mix between environmental and narrative-driven story telling. It will feature gameplay elements the survival genre is known for, including building a base, crafting gear, gathering resources, and hunting and cooking food.

That being said, the humour of being shrunken down to bug-size and the big scary world being a simple back yard does lend itself to the humour and personality that we’re used to from the studio. It’s worth noting that Grounded is being created by a smaller development team within Obsidian as a passion project, so this shouldn’t be considered “the next Outer Worlds” or anything drastic.

It’s still a notable announcement as it’s the first game that Obsidian will release exclusively on Xbox One after they were acquired by Microsoft last year, at X018.

Grounded is coming to Xbox Game Preview in 2020, and will be the first Xbox Game Preview title to be available on Xbox Game Pass.