So, about half a day of playing the game with a friend and I gotta say, I have some notes. Let's get off what I have good to say about the game first.

+ Grounded 2: Exactly what it says on the tin. The game is just that, the sequel to Grounded. If you liked Grounded, you'll like this game. You got a lot of returning elements such as your day-night cycle, survival elements such as base building and eat/drinking, crafting tools from bugs, dealing with bugs in general. Not much to say there, it's definitely Grounded 2.

+ Buggies: Definitely a welcome inclusion. One of my complaints about the original game was the traveling was very sluggish. Setting up Ziplines was a hassle, making them tall enough so it actually went fast was a pain and your only other options were walking or a teleporter, which you couldn't get unless you beat the game 3 times already (which made the travelling problem more pronounced). Buggies solve this by making travelling actually *feel* fast. Just the simple act of giving a speed boost and riding a bug really helps the travelling feel good (even if it's not faster than teleporting or a good zipline) because you actually feel like you're riding an ant really fast. It tricks your brain into being satisfied with the ride, and that goes to show that what's basically "Running but on a Bug" can feel great if you put in the time to make it feel good. The Ant Buggy helps with building, like the game said. I had an issue with it, though, occasionally just walking in front of me when trying to do literally anything. Since you can interact with it, that meant it would cancel whatever I was doing and force me to focus on the bug. It would be nice if it didn't do that, I'm not a big fan of being interrupted while trying to harvest stuffs.

+ Omni Tool: I wasn't exactly sold on the idea at first, because you can't swing-cancel to break resource nodes like pebbles or clay faster like you could in Grounded because of how the Omnitool works, but I hopped on board because it helps mitigate the storage issues. You no longer need to carry an axe, a shovel, a hammer or a wrench. That's 4 (Technically 3 because who the hell is carrying a wrench all the time) slots in your inventory opened up for other things. That, and it solves the issue of forgetting the tool you need. Now, the Omnitool is a permanent addition to your belt, it's not even in the inventory. You can always dig, bust, or chop. No comments here, it's just an all-around buff.

~ Combat: Everyone and their mother is talking about combat, so I won't waste too much time here. The fact that charge attacks are expanded on and bugs block your attacks now is great, it makes you think a little more about how you'll approach the battle. I will say, bugs block too much. Way too much. Sometimes they'll block, and I'll break their block, and they'll just block immediately again. That, and the only way to break blocks seems to be to charge your attack. Sometimes leads to an issue where you'll charge your attack because the bug just won't stop blocking, but then the bug will start swinging on you like it just gained sentience and figured out your next move. Other times it just leads to these boring fights where the bugs just. Keep blocking. Bugs need to block less, and I think they shouldn't block twice in a row. It would be cool if they had a fakeout to try and trick you into charging, but it definitely feels like the bugs just randomly decide attacks and one of them so happens to be a block. Other than that, the archetypes and combat system as it is vastly improves on the old game. The Rogue playstyle in particular is great, though I've noticed sometimes ambush attacks aren't counted, and it would be nice if bug awareness wasn't so touchy. They notice me sometimes from stupid angles, and sometimes it feels like they just stop pretending to think they don't know where I am. You can't really do a stealthy surprise attack in the game if the enemies can catch you for seemingly no reason, you feel?

+ Content: So many complaints about content, so many people not seeing the bigger picture. The amount of the bugs in the game, as well as the content, is a bit light, yes. But as it is, this is leagues better than even end-of-development Grounded. I feel everyone's so quick to forget that we were hyped for what was basically a thousand reskinned enemies, with 4 of them literally just being ants with a new attack every now and then. The Black Widow, Tiger Mosquito, Termites, Ladybirds...at some point, Grounded stopped adding in new creatures and started adding in reskins, and that was okay. But you could tell burnout and limitations were applying, the devs seemed to be running out of ways to add interesting content into the game near the end of its life. Grounded 2 doesn't have this problem. Granted, it's early access and we haven't seen what the devs plan to add later, but right from the start every enemy feels unique and plays into their own niche. The Wolf Spider looks nothing like it did in the last game, there aren't any variants or reskins (yet). It feels like this is a much more coherent and put together plan, something the devs are actually working hard to make unique and actually feel interesting. This is *actual* content, not the reuse and recycling we got in the Fully Yoked update. With more things on the way, we'll just have to see if Obsidian continues this trend.

Now, onto some negatives I have about the game.

- Understanding and Readability: On the surface, most of the stuff in Grounded 2 is obvious, and if you played Grounded you won't have any issues. But even as a returning player, some stuff just isn't obvious enough. For instance, I have no idea how to customize the new Hot Pouch. The ability to have your hot pouch instantly select items such as foods and light sources is great and handy. Too bad I couldn't use it, because I couldn't find anywhere in the game to change the slots without overwriting them. Dragging those items to it doesn't work, it just replaces the slot with the item you chose. If you have 30 dried snail jerky, your gnat jerky hot pouch slot doesn't care. And the help section doesn't help either. The information in it is just straight up wrong, the key to bind things to the hot pouch is not the one labeled, even though it confidently states so. Despite what the game suggests in the beginning and in the help menu, there is no obvious way to customize the hot pouch as far as I'm concerned. Another issue is starvation and thirst, or rather the fact that it simply isn't obvious enough. You get one audio cue when you're thirsty / hungry, and that isn't enough when you're fighting for your life or focusing on something else. I need the game to scream at me in some way to tell me to eat, because the icons are just in the corner off to the side and you don't think about them until it's inconvenient. I can't tell you how many times I learned I was close to dying of thirst because I couldn't swing my weapons because I ran out of stamina, an effect that happens when you're thirsty but isn't announced. I shouldn't be made aware that my character needs to drink only in the *middle of combat,* yknow? I could go on, but in general I feel the game needs to be a bit more clear about certain important mechanics, such as not dying or utilizing a system that the game clearly encourages.

I could go on about glitches or issues, but I'm certain Obsidian is aware of a lot of major issues. In the future, I might leave another review if these issues don't get checked or patched, or if there are better things, but as for now I'm mostly satisfied with how Grounded 2 is at its release. It's definitely not finished, nor is it outstanding, but it is promising. And in a sea of game releases that end up being mediocre, I'm glad to say thanks to Grounded 2 for actually living up to my expectations when so many other games got me hyped and fell short,

i broke the game, restarted and it was already patched
co-op with devs, fight bugs together

**EDIT: game is now marked as EA, we did it everyone 🥳 🎊

To those who didn't play the first game this IS early access. It's not currently marked as such on the steam page, so just be aware.

That said, this is everything I wanted from a sequel to the first already. Can't wait to see future updates

EDIT2: locking comments because 80% of you lack reading comprehension
TLDR if you love the first game, get this one