From its humble beginnings in its Early Access phase to its final form released earlier this year, Grounded has gone through some seismic changes. There may be a few issues and bugs to contend with (both technical and physical), but overall Grounded has received a warm reception from gamers. The combination of Obsidian’s unmistakable humor and a slick survival setup is a winning one, but some aspects could do with a few improvements. From interchangeable protagonists to a lack of a character creator, Grounded could take a closer look at its playable characters.
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The Playable Characters
Set in 1990, Grounded follows the story of four teenagers named Pete, Max, Hoops, and Willow as they try to work out how they found themselves the size of a small insect and marooned in someone’s backyard. Exploring the yard yields a number of clues, and the four teens learn how they were taken by a company called Ominent and experimented on, which led to their new miniature stature. With the help of a robotic assistant named BURG.L and Dr. Wendell Tully, an ex-Ominent scientist, the teens are able to defeat Director Schmector and return to their normal size.
While the four teenagers have distinct looks and voice actors, their speed, health, and abilities are all exactly the same. Characters will react to their situations and voice their opinions about what is happening to them, but for all intents and purposes, they are pretty interchangeable. Although this could be seen as a positive by some gamers as it avoids the agonizing choice of picking who to play as and the fear of missing out on unique character advantages, others would like their choice of protagonist to have more meaning in Grounded.
Adding To The Roster
In Grounded, gamers can choose up to four-person co-op or can decide to tackle the adventure solo. While it can be helpful to have friends beside you to take on those bloodthirsty spiders or avoid those pesky koi fish, the different characters won’t be bringing anything unique except another pair of hands. By adding more playable characters, Obsidian could include character specializations so that additional protagonists actually make more of a difference.
This would be a similar setup to Bethesda’s Redfall, a cooperative FPS that sees players pitted against vampires. In Redfall gamers can also choose between four different characters, but in this case, they have their own special abilities that provide a huge tactical advantage depending on the situation. This does make things a little harder if players are opting to go solo, but it really encourages co-op play and gives players options and more creativity regarding their play style.
More playable characters would also be an effective way to expand the story. The four teens that players can choose from in Grounded aren’t even the first to go missing, and bringing in other victims of Ominent and their sinister experiments would not only add to the character roster but would also make sense from a narrative perspective. Although Grounded is very much a survival game, there are some elements of RPG hidden in there as well, and many gamers’ favorite part of the RPG is the character creator. This could be a fun way to add more playable characters and could also widen the protagonists’ demographics beyond just teens as well.
Grounded is available to play on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and is free to play on Xbox Game Pass.
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