Grounded 2 has finally arrived in early access, but I've already been playing it for hours on end. The follow-up to my favorite survival game of all time is bigger and more ambitious, and it makes some interesting changes to the standard formula.
Chief among those changes is the removal of your typical axe, hammer, shovel, and other tools for collecting resources. Replacing them all is the aptly named Omni-Tool, which dynamically changes to adapt to the task at hand.
Some hardcore survival game fans may decry this simplification, and others may claim it makes Grounded 2 "easy" (it doesn't), but my hours of play time have convinced me Obsidian Entertainment made the correct decision — and I can give you three reasons why.
Tying gameplay progression to story progression
In the original Grounded, you'd have to craft and manage multiple tools in order to collect all the resources you'd need to progress in the game. Now, the Omni-Tool combines all those functions into one, and you're provided one as part of Grounded 2's opening tutorial.
Grounded 2 already provides a significantly better onboarding experience with clearer guidance for new players, and the Omni-Tool helps to focus the game as a whole. With Grounded 2, your progression through the game is tied directly to your progression through the story.
The Omni-Tool and story guide each other in Grounded 2.
You don't have to worry about crafting individual tools for each new resource type you encounter, but you do need to upgrade the Omni-Tool to rise to the latest challenge. That still means exploring the Park in search of rare and valuable resources to craft those upgrades, but the blueprints themselves are discovered by following the narrative.
It's a subtle but distinct difference in approach, and it'll undoubtedly become even more important as you move through Grounded 2 (given how much larger this game will end up being than its original).
Removing the tedium of managing countless tools
I can already hear the weird survival genre purists: "This makes the game too easy." No, it makes the game less tedious, but tedium has never (and will never) equaled difficulty. Grounded 2 still requires exploration, careful management of resources, and the skills required to tackle increasingly terrifying foes to collect new ingredients.
Now, though, you don't have to individually craft, manage, and upgrade individual tools for chopping, smashing, digging, repairing, and whatever else you need to do. You also don't need to take up a precious inventory slot with all of these tools (the Omni-Tool doesn't even appear in your inventory, it's always present exactly when you need it).
Tedium has never equaled difficulty, and the Omni-Tool makes Grounded 2 less frustrating without making it easier.
The Omni-Tool never breaks, either, so the upgrades you make are permanent (and there's no risk of losing a tool to durability deterioration and needing to embark on a tangent adventure to collect repair ingredients, which is only ever frustrating).
For those concerned about simplicity, upgrading the Omni-Tool through each tier (and unlocking new upgrades and functions) is no small feat, and it's a diverse tool with a lot of paths to progress through during your time in Grounded 2.
Creating more space for weapons and combat to shine
The biggest effect, though, is on combat. In Grounded, the line between tools and weapons was blurry, thanks to certain creatures in the Backyard being weak to specific damage types — caused by tools that were objectively weaker than dedicated weapons.
Ignoring these weaknesses wasn't viable in the game's most difficult confrontations, either, but tools rarely (if ever) neatly fit into complete builds. That's changed in Grounded 2, with a clear distinction between weapons and the Omni-Tool.
The Omni-Tool provides room for more weapon types, more combinations and loadouts, and more fun with combat.
There are more weapon types (including the incredibly fun dual-wielding category) with unique damage types and specializations, and the synergy between weapons, armor, trinkets, mutations, and more is deeper and clearer.
Combat in Grounded 2 feels even more exciting as a result, even in the early game before more advanced status effects and damage types are introduced. I'm already excited by the possibilities, and not needing to also manage individual tools gives me more flexibility to engage with the game's combat mechanics.
If you've spent some time with Grounded 2, do you agree that the Omni-Tool is an upgrade over the original game? If you haven't played yet, Grounded 2 is now available in early access across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC and Steam, and Xbox Game Pass.
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