Grounded 2 exists for one reason: fans wanted to ride the bugs

Digital Trends

2 days ago

There were a lot of surprises at this year's Xbox Games Showcase, but few turned my head the way Grounded 2 did. I wasn't just shocked because it is Obsidian Entertainment's third game releasing in 2025 (behind Avowed and ahead of The Outer Worlds 2). I was more so surprised that the team made it at all. The first Grounded only hit early access in 2020 and enjoyed regular updates on its path to 1.0. It very much felt early for a full sequel to arrive. But it turns out that there's one very simple answer for why the team went full steam ahead: Its fans begged to ride the bugs.
Following the Xbox Games Showcase this past weekend, I played 30 minutes of Grounded 2 and spoke to Executive Producer Marcus Morgan about its origin. While the sequel doesn't change too much about the original based on my early play time, it does expand the world of Grounded by a significant degree. Those changes simply couldn't have fit into another update.
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My demo begins with a quick tutorial sequence where I'm introduced to the new story, the 90s setting, and the basic crafting loop. I have once again been shrunk to the size of an insect and need to fight my way through a backyard by crafting handy items from the nature around me. I quickly learn how to gather things like sap and grass blades, analyze them at a research station, and build the recipes I unlock from a workbench. I'm left to survive in the wild, avoiding giant insects until I can make weapons powerful enough to take them down. Simple enough.
What I do learn after playing my demo is that the world I'm exploring, Brookhollow Park, is much bigger this time. The starting area that will be available in the early access release is the size of Grounded's complete map. When Grounded 2 finishes its life cycle, Moragn says that its map will be three times larger. 30 minutes wasn't enough to explore it all, but I did wander into some dangerous tunnels and scale an enormous picnic blanket draped over a bench, a natural platforming challenge that eventually required me to brave the cold interior of an iced beverage container.
I don't find anything truly different about that loop until I load up a save file that's a little further along. Marcus Morgan directs me over to an ant hill. A friendly ant pops out and I jump on its back. It's my personal mount, and I can use it to ride around the world while still harvesting materials and attacking other bugs. I only rode an ant, but critters like spiders will be rideable too. It's a nice addition, but I initially wonder why it just wasn't added to Grounded post-launch instead. Morgan tells me why that addition demanded a sequel that was built for it.
'It's the number one requested feature we got from Grounded of what people wanted,' Morgan tells Digital Trends. 'It also is the baseline that generated why we expanded to make a new map, expanded to make a new game, expanded to make a new world. We didn't want buggies just to be something that you rode around on. We wanted them, one, fully integrated into the final experience. That's why you can craft with an ant buggie, you can fight, you can build with them. We actually prototyped out mounts in Grounded pretty early on, but the world wasn't designed to fit that in. Traversal changes, how you make POIs, how you do interior and exterior level design. All that stuff changes when you do it, and so it really is the catalyst for what created a lot of moving to Brookhollow Park.'
After 30 minutes, I'm firmly back in the grounded loop. I'm hacking down blades of grass, fighting off bugs with my pebble spear, and living in an intricate base that can protect me from the giant bugs roaming around. It's all very familiar, but it's undoubtedly charming to be back in that world. Grounded 2 looks especially nice as an Xbox Series X/S and PC exclusive, as I feel like the environments benefit from warmer lighting pouring through the grass. Near the end of my chat with Morgan, I ask why the team wanted to return to Grounded so quickly after the first game rather than creating something new. His eyes light up.
'Because it's so frickin' fun making content in Grounded,' Morgan says with a big smile 'It's one of the few games where you walk outside and you have an inspiration of 12 ideas of what you can make. And there was so much we hadn't touched on. Sometimes when you're making a sequel, you're kind of stuck because you're like 'what else can I add here that makes this interesting?' With this one it's like, there's a million other bugs I want to do. I want to do bigger creatures at some point and time and figure out a way to make that work. There's wild new biomes that we can come with. We weren't out of ideas of what we could do more with.'
Who can argue with enthusiasm?
Grounded 2 launches into early access on July 29 for Xbox Series X/S and PC.