Going Hands-On With Grounded 2—Bigger, Better, Stranger

I was somewhat surprised to see Grounded 2 when it was announced at the Xbox Games Showcase 2025, and even more so to be able to go hands-on with it less than a month later. Despite initially liking my time with the first Grounded, the sheer influx of open-world survival games with crafting elements that infested gaming in the late 2010s, like so many ants in a backyard, had me effectively exhausted with the concept.

But like I said in my review of the Switch version of Grounded, it was the right game at the wrong time—its premise was so fresh and fun that despite my weariness with the genre, I was able to really get hooked into it. A second time around, its sequel is again doing everything right in a bigger, weirder and much more approachable way.

Grounded 2 sets its tone pretty immediately as one that’s a bit more tongue-in-cheek than its predecessor. While I never felt like the first game was taking itself too seriously, I couldn’t help but laugh this time... Read more