Nearing two years since its release, the Obisidian Entertainment developed and Xbox Game Studio published title Grounded has arrived on other platforms this week on the PlayStation 4 and 5 and Nintendo Switch. Thanks to Xbox, we’ve had the chance to check out the game on PS5 and man does it feel good to return to the fish-out-of-water scenario of being a microscopic teen in a great big world.
Though I’ve started but never finished my journey on PC, I feel prime to keep the ball rolling and moving on PlayStation 5. Thankfully, the launch comes with a new update, now labelling Grounded with the tagline “Fully Yoked Edition.” This update comes with New Game Plus, new gear and new Queen Ants. It’s all good and needed content that I’m confident will keep the fans happy; I’ve certainly accidentally stumbled into the terrifying situation of coming toe to toe with one of these new ants way before I was adequately leveled to do so.
That situation of being infinitisemal in size compared to a killer ant or venomous spider was always some of the most fun, water cooler talk style moments of Grounded. Though I’m doing it solo on the couch now, the novelty is all the same, playing on a high definition tv and feeling larger than life while I remain, well, smaller than life.
Grounded runs, plays and handles well, but the more keyboard and mouse acquainted every now and then might be that slight little bit wanting playing the adventure on keyboard. First person crafting games have always been a little bit stiff to play on a controller and though there’s some good quality of life in how efficiently you can rotate, bend and snap objects together in base building, manouevring menus and swapping between items isn’t as quick and efficient. For instance, instead of the fluid Stardew Valley approach of using the left or right bumper to tab between inventory slots for usable items, I have to hold L1 then navigate an item wheel and then confirm the selection.
Similarly, the very reason I want to check out a game again on another platform is for its novelties. Thus far, there doesn’t appear to be an implimented use of the PS5’s DualSense contoller using its adaptive triggers. This is something I believe to be sorely missing, easily being able to pointing to the use of a bow as an instance where I want to experience the Dualsense’s bells and whistles, feeling it in the triggers when I pullback for a shot.
This is far from a deterrant for the game, and might just very well be a symptom of the project of Xbox games making their way over to PlayStation and other platforms such as Switch still being in their infancy. Before this, we’ve now received Obsidian Entertainment’s other 2022 release in Pentiment, along with Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi RUSH also making their way to PlayStation 5. Next comes Sea of Thieves later this month. Then that’s all we know for now. I hope this new approach to Xbox works out for them and that we see more games making the jump, simply because more games being available to more players is always a good thing.
Grounded is available now on Xbox consoles, PC, PlayStation 4 and 5 and the Nintendo Switch. If you’re yet to jump into the wonderful and whimsical survival adventure, especially on one of these new platforms, I highly recommend you do.
About the Author
Charlie Kelly
She/Her, They/Them
Charlie loves her video games as much as she loves dumb, charming JRPG protagonists: probably way too much. You can often catch her spending too much time being emotional over LGBT stories in games. She also thinks Yakuza 6 is the best one.
