Grounded

Grounded starts from a genuinely great pitch: what if you were shrunk down to the size of an ant in the middle of an ordinary suburban backyard? A lawn becomes a dense jungle, a puddle becomes a lake to cross, and a spider that used to go unnoticed becomes a nightmarish predator several meters tall from down here. The game commits to that idea from start to finish with a seriousness that’s surprising for a studio better known for its narrative RPGs.

The backyard as a complete survival playground

Every corner of the yard has been designed as its own micro-region with its own ecosystem: the lawn and its ants, the pond and its aquatic insects, the sandbox and its wolf spiders. Exploring literally means discovering a new biome every bush you cross, each with its own resources to gather and its own dangers to master before you can venture through it safely.

A threat at insect scale, literally

The game’s real genius is how it uses scale to generate tension: an ordinary jumping spider becomes a fearsome boss, a lawnmower becomes a devastating weather event. Playable in co-op, Grounded keeps a genuine survival edge despite its whimsical setting — hunger and thirst management, gear crafting — a reminder that you’re never far from danger, even in a seemingly peaceful backyard.