Grounded 2: First Impressions From a Survivor

Grounded 2: First Impressions From a Survivor

I rolled my eyes at “Grounded 2” and installed it anyway, the way you open leftovers at midnight—expecting cold pizza, getting a full meal. Three hours later I was face-down in a soda can, listening to a Ladybug thump past like a washing machine on spin cycle, and realized: this isn’t just a bigger yard. They rebuilt the entire scale so mounts could finally make sense.

Day 1 Notes: Woke Up Tiny, Knew Nothing, It Worked.

You wake up tiny, under a park bench you don’t recognize. No recap, no corkboard of villains. It’s better that way. When the park sprinkler kicks on and a five-foot-high wall of water erases your trail, you don’t need lore—you need higher ground, fast. For returning players, the occasional audio log will click, but this is a game about surviving the now, not studying the past.

The Grind Before the Gallop

By hour three, I’d burned through two full stacks of bandages just sprinting between the picnic basket and the grill. I was getting hopelessly lost. I even had to build a pathetic little waypoint out of clover roofs near the fountain just to orient myself. The world felt hostile, sure, but mostly it felt exhausting. I was about ready to log off and write a very different kind of review.

The Park Will Kill You, So Time Your Trips.

The BBQ pit cooks you from two screens away. On the Early Access build (0.1.3 for me), the Sizzle debuff starts ticking the second you step on the ash line. My tests showed an Antlion chest piece plus a 'Quesadillant' gives you about 28 seconds of survival time before you need to heal. I figured that out after whiffing the crossing twice and leaving a very sad grave marker right on the grate.

The Heist That Changes Everything

I botched two egg heists—the worker ants swarm the moment you light a torch in their nest. Third try, I went in at dawn, crafting a Slime Lantern for its dim glow and dropping clover roofs behind me as breadcrumbs. I hatched the Red Soldier Ant, whistled for it, and the entire map snapped into focus. Stinkbug gas? I could hold the line for five seconds, swing twice, back out, and repeat. The first clean stagger on a bug I used to run from felt illegal.

Your Two-Minute Starter Path

Want to skip the early fumbling? Here's the plan: Wake up at the bench → run straight to the soda can cache for sap and clover → craft Bandages and a Slime Lantern → find the toppled chain-link panel near the fountain → mark the shadow it casts. That’s your landmark for the dawn heist to get a Red Ant egg.

Quick Facts & Final Thoughts

Here are the hard details from my run. The game is Early Access, which means spiders still occasionally moonwalk through fences and performance can be uneven.

• My Test Rig: PC (Ryzen 5 5600, RTX 3060, 32GB). Early Access build 0.1.3.
• Performance: At 1440p on High settings, I got a smooth 70–90 fps in the grasslands, but it got chunky near the BBQ pit at night, dipping to 48–55 fps.
• The Deets: It launched July 29, 2025, on Xbox Series X|S and PC (Steam Early Access / Xbox Game Preview). Game Pass gets you in on day one.

The rough edges are real. But the foundation is the kind you can build months of exciting updates on. This isn't just a sequel; it's the game the first one was always dreaming of becoming. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Wolf Spider that owes me some fangs.