Obsidian is mostly known for its role-playing games, as they were the brain behind the masterfully crafted Fallout: New Vegas and the recent hit game, The Outer Worlds. However, it looks like the studio has decided to go into another direction in making new games.
In Microsoft’s biggest event of the year, the X019, Obsidian revealed its next title: Grounded. This is a survival game set in a suburban backyard, in which a group of four teenagers have been shrunk down to ant-size and stranded. This is quite a unique idea video game-wise, however, there is already a movie or two with the same plot. According to the game’s Director, Adam Brennecke, Grounded would be really different to what Obsidian used to produce.
Grounded is going to be a four-player coop survival experience that can be played in both first and third person. The gameplay would be similar to the usual survival mechanics out there, with hunting, gathering, crafting resources and building bases. The thing Obsidian is betting for, however, is the settings. The usual American backyard at a giant size is vastly different from whatever you have seen in other survival games like Ark, Rust or The Forest. The world around you would be different yet familiar, from flora, fauna to insect adversaries. A patch of grass becomes a forest, bugs become giant monsters and so forth.
The game would be much more elaborate and “grounded” to reality than it might initially seem. Brennecke revealed that the team is currently working on a realistic and robust ecosystem, with insects' life behaving similar to what they do in real life. Along with a day/night cycle system, the game would be much deeper than anyone could imagine.
Grounded would be available sometime in Spring next year. The game would be available on both Xbox and PC. Interested in more X019 related news? Please check out this post for more information about the newest RPG title made by inXile, Wasteland 3.