The reveal of Grounded, a third-person survival game in development at Obsidian, was quite the surprise at X019.
Obsidian is known for its roleplaying games, of course, but they had been brewing this concept - being shrunk to the size of an ant and having to survive in your own garden - for a while with a small team. We knew the goal was to launch in an early access mode through Xbox Game Preview and Xbox Game Pass, but now Grounded has popped up on Steam, suggesting it'll be available right away on Valve's store as well.
There's quite a bit of new information, too, such as the launch window for the full version (2021) and the amount of content that'll be available at the beginning of the early access.
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
We want to make the best experience possible and putting an exact timeline on an early-in-development game is very challenging. That said, we also want to be transparent with our community, so we will give you our best guess with the understanding that these plans may change. The current target for Grounded’s full release is sometime in 2021.
How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
There is a ton of great content we want to deliver with Grounded, but more importantly some of the ideas and features may change dramatically based on the feedback we receive from the community. Our current plan for the full release is to have the following features:
• Complete storyline
• Steam Achievements and Cards
• More bugs! The insect kind.
• More environments and biomes
• More crafting recipes
• Additional features and updated systems to improve the entire experienceWhat is the current state of the Early Access version?
At the start of Early Access, the following features/content will be available in Grounded:
• Roughly 20% of the full storyline
• 3 major biomes – the grasslands, the hedge, and the haze
• Crafting
• Base building
• Single and online co-op play
• First two tiers of weapons and armor
• At least ten insects
• Arachnophobia mode
The Steam page also contains the minimum system requirements for Grounded, which are quite tame and shouldn't pose a problem to anybody who's been gaming in the last few years.
System Requirements
MINIMUM:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 7 (SP1) 64bit
- Processor: Intel Core i3-3225
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GTX 650 Ti
- Storage: 8 GB available space
Below you can check out some gameplay footage from the X019 event.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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