Things That Make No Sense About Grounded 2

Summary

Grounded 2 has logic problems with its gameplay, like empty chests and unrealistic hunger mechanics.
The game has odd limitations on storage and retrieval systems that can be frustrating for players.
Crafting in Grounded 2 allows for combining random materials to create gear, but the process lacks logical explanation.

Grounded 2 is a direct sequel to the first game. As a refresher, the original game featured four kids shrunken by a scientist in his backyard by accident. It was Honey, I Shrunk The Kids mixed with a survival game. Without spoiling too much about how that game ended, the beginning of Grounded 2 sees the kids wake up in a new backyard, but they are still fun-sized. What are they doing there? How can they get out?

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By Hamza Haq

That’s the general setup of Grounded 2, and while it is another fun game from Obsidian Entertainment, even in Early Access, there are some logic problems with the gameplay. It doesn’t ruin anything, but they are odd to say the least. At the end of the day, all of these examples can be poked with enough holes to make Swiss cheese. Grounded 2 is still fun regardless of the logic holes, but maybe Obsidian Entertainment can take these criticisms to heart and make some changes of their own as they push the game towards its full release.

6 Empty Chests

Let’s Repurpose Containers

Players can find massive chests around the environment, with some buried deep in the earth and others just waiting in plain sight, like in a Ranger Outpost. Usually, players can get the best loot from chests or corpses, which should not be surprising to RPG veterans. However, what’s baffling is that once a chest is opened, that’s it.

For example, there is a chest found within the first Ranger Station, which would be a good place to store items. Unfortunately, players cannot reuse the chest for storage, and have to build a separate container themselves. Other RPGs, from Fallout to The Elder Scrolls series, allow players to stuff chests or even corpses with unwanted items, so the exclusion of this mechanic in Grounded 2 is odd. Is Obsidian Entertainment saying chests are only good for one thing?

5 Eating One Mushroom Should Sustain For More Than A Few Minutes

How Hungry Are These Kids?

Besides their health, players have to eat food and drink water in Grounded 2. Water is fairly easy to find as droplets hang on blades of grass. One droplet should sustain players for quite a while, but food is another thing entirely.

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By Tristan Jurkovich

One of the easiest food resources to find is tiny, capped mushrooms. To a full-sized person, it would take a lot of these mushrooms to feel full after eating, but that shouldn’t be the case for the tiny children in this game. One mushroom should fill one of these kids up in Grounded 2, but it doesn’t, and it’s strange. Maybe one mushroom isn’t going to satisfy a character's taste buds, but their stomach should be plenty full after one, maybe two caps at most.

4 Inventory Limitations

That’s A Big Backpack

Exploring a Ranger Station in Grounded 2

Beyond the chest situation, there is another oddity with storage in the game. Players can fill up their backpack pretty easily, which is why crafting storage units quickly is important. If players need to, they can offload unwanted materials into the first Ranger Station to keep them safe, which will look ridiculous, but it works.

Look at that pile in the screenshot. All of those materials were stored in a single backpack made for kids. Why should there even be a storage limitation on backpacks at all? In this world filled with shrunken kids, Obsidian Entertainment could easily explain that the characters also have a shrink ray that only works to shrink items in their backpacks. They don’t, so the whole thing is silly instead.

3 Who Brings Your Body Back?

Back Retrieval

Grounded 2 has a Soulslike retrieval system for when characters “die” in the field. It should be noted that even on the Mild difficulty in Grounded 2, bugs like Ladybugs can absolutely mess players up. Death is inevitable, and wherever players fall, their backpack will be waiting.

Grounded 2 is basically claiming that fallen kids are dragged back to safety by someone or something, and that entity cannot carry their backpack as well. People, no matter their relative size, are heavy, and so are backpacks filled with stuff, so that is not a logic problem. Who exactly is retrieving bodies out there, especially when players are all alone outside of Grounded 2’s co-op? That’s the question players should be asking.

2 Ranger Station Analysis

How Do Batteries Work?

Similar to the first game, players can bring materials to Ranger Stations and have them analyzed. Doing so will produce Raw Science points, which can increase Brainpower levels and be used as a form of currency that can then unlock crafting recipes or upgrades for the Omni-Tool in Grounded 2. When players analyze a piece of material, it will drain their battery.

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By Tristan Jurkovich

The facility seems to run on electricity, so why would that drain a battery? Also, if these shelters do run on batteries, then why do they continually recharge after a minute? It seems like an odd free-to-play model incorporated into Grounded 2, but the game isn’t charging for microtransactions, thankfully. This makes the whole idea of draining batteries odd.

1 Crafting Anything Out Of Everything

Genius Kids

Gruonded 2 is a bit like the Monster Hunter series, as players can take random materials like nuts and combine them with bug parts to make gear. While it can look a bit awkward, it’s also cool to see how the game takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. This is a logic problem with all crafting games, so this isn’t just a dig at Grounded 2.

Even with blueprints, how are these kids building all these contraptions? Bug-encrusted armor? Dressers? Entire houses? It’s an incredible feat, and players aren’t exactly using 3D printers to aid in their crafting schemes, but a 3D printer would be an easier pill to swallow logically. Building a house isn’t as easy as building with LEGO bricks.

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