Obsidian has been developing world-class games for decades now, and with Grounded, its first foray into the survival genre, the studio has proven that far-flung science fiction and fantasy settings are not requisite for them to create a great game. Grounded highlights an important lesson that sometimes a familiar setting from a new perspective can be just as novel as a fictional one.
Based on its long track record, not many expected a title like Grounded to come from a studio like Obsidian. Known for narrative-focused RPGs with an unparalleled agency over the player character's moral boundaries and NPC interactions, Obsidian games take players to strange new worlds. A survival game set in an American suburban backyard seemed outside its wheelhouse, but Obsidian was more than up to the challenge.
How Grounded Rose Above the Competition
Originally released in July 2020, Grounded followed the early-access model that Obsidian had earlier adopted for its Pillars of Eternity series. While survival games were a hot trend, Grounded set itself apart with its Honey, I Shrunk the Kid plot and a surprising amount of polish for a live-service game, something some of its contemporaries in the genre lacked. While earlier Obsidian titles wore bore straight into their narratives, Grounded had players unwrapping its story in layers while struggling to survive as a miniaturized teenager in a backyard in dire need of an exterminator.
An early staple of Xbox Game Pass, Grounded also marked Obsidian's first console-exclusive game. The studio performed the tasks of an early-access studio deftly, keeping the pace of content updates for Grounded consistent and keeping players hooked to the mystery of how they got shrunk and how, hopefully, they would get un-shrunk. Obsidian released version 1.0 for Grounded in September 2022, wrapping up its irreverent story with a bow worthy of the studio's narrative chops, and proving that the studio can deliver a hit in any genre it sets its sights on.
Grounded Proves That Sometimes Smaller is Better
Some of Obsidian's most popular games like Fallout New Vegas and The Outer Worlds contain sprawling open worlds and massive set-pieces, flexing depth in their scale and science fiction settings. Exploring alien planets or ours in a post-apocalyptic filter are riveting experiences that helped to put Obsidian on the map, but with so many other new games going a similar route, occasionally a smaller scale can stand out among the crowd. Obsidian has done it before, with South Park: The Stick of Truth, delivering a game that can be a critical success with an outlandish story, without having to rely on an unfamiliar setting.
Two games in the pipeline for Obsidian are Avowed and The Outer World 2, both of which will be set in new fantasy and science fiction worlds respectively. While there is no reason not to celebrate a seeming return to form for the studio, after it is finished with its high-budget faraway stories, another detour into the smaller scale would be a perfect opportunity for Obsidian to experiment and flex its creativity. Even a Grounded 2 could take the lessons learned from the original and become another left-field hit unburdened by a novel of in-game lore text required to comprehend the complexities of its setting.
No matter what Obsidian decides for its future, being one of the premier studios in the industry, gamers will definitely show up. Whether its new games are strange or familiar, far-out or zoomed-in, big-budget AAA affairs or genre experiments, Obsidian has earned the benefit of the doubt. Despite that, there is an argument to be made that its best course would be to take Grounded as a blueprint for its new games, making a story that is absurd while still keeping one foot in reality.
Grounded is available on Pc, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.