Another game that I’ve considered playing for a while, Grounded’s Game Preview became part of a Microsoft Rewards thing so I finally gave it a go.

Play as a child running around in the grass. The thing is the child is shrunk down to be as small as the insects that dwell in the garden. Early on the player is tasked with fixing a machine to go home, it breaks forcing the gameplay to go on.

Gameplay wise Grounded is a survival game. Players must maintain food and water bars, stamina is limited but does regenerate with the crafting of equipment being a key feature. Enemies come in the form of predatory creepy crawlies like spiders or soldier ants and the player must become a predator to gain resources for crafting more advanced equipment.

I died a few times, losing my equipment. A backpack appeared where I died with an obvious map markers making it easy to recover lost progress. The tutorial isn’t detailed or helpful but features like the backpack on death are really player friendly.

Players will gain Science Points and Brainpower as they explore but I didn’t get far enough to find out what these are really for. It does show evidence that someone or something was in this tiny world before meaning there could be interesting mysteries to uncover. Little robots and advanced computers make it very interesting to play.

As it’s a game preview Grounded is still incomplete but does feature online multiplayer. Multiplayer feels right for the game but I personally would prefer split screen.

I’ve kept it installed on my Xbox though so it’s obviously got my attention. Seems like it’s worth a bit more time, even playing solo.