NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
Early access has been out for Grounded 2 on PC and Xbox for a couple of weeks. The game is free via Game Pass and picks up right where the first left off. Okay, maybe a little bit down the road, but not much. You get some added features that dial in your character’s class, as well as ‘bug’gies to ride around and explore the park after the little event. Now that the current story is over, what should they add down the road that would make the game that much more fun?
Fast Travel
Don’t get me wrong, half the fun of the game is the constant engagement and battle of roaming free in the park. However, if they plan to make the map as large as implied, maybe it’s time we be able to travel between our bases. No, not all of them, maybe they have 2 or 3 max builds on a fast travel station. Someone has already built pneumatic tubes that carry you from base to base or floor to floor. Why not create a system of fast travel the same way? Take the glass bottles that litter the park and allow you to break them for resources, and insert a series of bugs or even a boss that drops the resources. It doesn’t need to offset the balance of the game and eliminate the bug travel, just allow getting from a main base to another outpost.
Water Aesthetics
Obsidian has already said they’re going to create water bases, but to what extent? Is it just a base that can be built underwater? On top of water? Or will we be able to incorporate water features into our current bases? Will I be able to build a moat or other features, or will water be strictly reserved for the park’s water area?
Cold Storage
Okay, one of my biggest complaints is how quickly food spoils. Of course, you can turn all to jerky and make meals that way, but there should be a way to slow down the deterioration of cooked meals. Games such as Ark and PalWorld have added refrigeration to their games, and it doesn’t take away from the need to eat. As a matter of fact, if you’re going to have an Everlasting Hogstopper be a trinket in the game for unlimited food, it seems almost silly not to have a way to preserve cooked meals.
Traps
Right now, the spike strips are great, but they could go one step further. Why not ice traps, or toxic, or even electric traps? In a game that you’re shrunk to the size of a bug, would it really be too hard to believe there are bug traps out there? You already have bait to lure some creatures in. Something that just temporarily pauses a bug mid-fight. Bombs work in this manner, but force you to switch off from your main weapon to throw/detonate. Could they set up a trap that you could keep re-arming with the ice mint candies or spicy shards?
Grounded 2 was fun for such a small content window. Most of it can be completed in a weekend, but that’s what you get with early access. Hopefully, they have a growing roadmap to really explore more of the park and push the limits of what they can do in this survival game.
