Grounded 2 preview: if I didn't have arachnophobia before, I do now

Grounded 2 was announced during the latest Xbox Games Showcase, and was a pleasant surprise amongst the stacked list of announcements.

I’ll be honest, I never really got into Grounded when it first came out. Since it was in early-access I was content with waiting for it to become a full-fledged title before I gave it a go, and then just never did.

That’s why I was grateful to have the chance to play Grounded 2 during Summer Game Fest, but my God this game felt scarier than Resident Evil: Requiem.

The first Grounded game was set in a suburban back garden, with the player’s character mysteriously shrunken down to ant-size and forced to survive a harsh environment where insects are the natural predators.

Grounded 2 expands on its sequel in more ways than one, once again shrinking down players but this time throwing them into a public park. This means more to explore, more to interact with, and more threats to face.

I was wandering through the tall grass, taking in the sights, minding my own business when suddenly an enormous, hyper-realistic spider appeared out of nowhere and started tearing me apart. I’m not arachnophobic but the encounter scared the living daylights out of me, and I endeavoured to steer clear of them whenever possible. This didn’t last long as another jumped out at me while I was fighting two ants, I nearly fell off my chair.

The rest of my time was pretty chill, as I explored the base-building mechanics, traversed the world on a rideable ant and looked up in awe at a bin that looked like a skyscraper compared to my character.

Aside from the eight-legged freaks though Grounded 2 feels pretty good. Like the first game it’ll be in early-access for a time but it feels like it’s taken everything that was positivity received about Grounded and expanded upon it in all the right ways. Player feedback was said to be a huge part of the game’s development and that’ll continue to be the case when it comes to post-launch support, with the game’s official Discord being the best place to go to provide feedback should you have any.

I’ll definitely be giving it another go when it comes to Xbox Game Pass, but I think I’ll be playing with the arachnophobia setting on…