Like the original game,Grounded 2’searly access launch doesn’t include all of its park, nor all of its story. Instead, you have free rein over about a quarter of the map, where the first act of the story takes place. It’s still a huge world to explore, but there’s always the looming promise of more, just beyond the construction tape.
Fortunately, it looks like Obsidian already knows how it’s going to expand the world of Grounded 2, with one area not only giving us a look at the full, finished map, but also a few juicy hints about where the story is going to go.
This article contains spoilers for Grounded 2.
Climb The Lectern For Some Sneak Peeks
If you follow the story of shutting down the O.R.C. transmitters, you’ll eventually find yourself tasked with climbing the lectern. This podium is full of all sorts of microphone equipment, written notes, and pamphlets for Ominent’s new community park, alongside more than a few spiders. After a grueling climb, you’ll run into even more O.R.C. butterflies, but also a couple of the most interesting details in the game so far.
The first is a handwritten note. This is implied to be written by Dr. Tully, who for some reason caused the explosion that set off Grounded 2’s events. At first, it reads like utter gobbledegook:
Platitudes linger east and south, entombed. Halves enter listless peril mornings, evenings, intentionally at most. Blessings end in nautical grace. Calmly on, notoriety trades roles over life, lest end dies.
However, if you look a bit closer, you’ll notice the first letter of each word in this script spells out a secret message:Please help me, I am being controlled.
While we don’t know the full story of Grounded 2 yet, this fits in with a lot of the early game missions that revolve around using Ominent technology tomind control bugs. The Mysterious Stranger uses O.R.C.s to control their army of insects, and your job is to disable their transmitters.
It’s likely we’ll be seeing more of this mind control tech as the story advances, with its expansion to controlling humans playing a bigger role later on. For now, though, Ominent plays the role of a reformed evil corporation, giving you handy tips and technology for surviving in the park.
A Bigger World
The other point of interest on top of the lectern is a leaflet from Ominent. It shows their plans for the park, and from it we can glean what Obsidian is planning to add in future updates.
At launch, the game includes five of the areas listed: the Picnic Area, the Statue, the Entrance, the Snack Bar, and the Ice Cream Vendor. Other areas mentioned, but not in the game yet, include the Community Garden, Playground, Rustic Bridge, Restroom, and the Water Features, which looks to be a combination of a pond, stream, and fountain.
The first game also had a pond, so maybe we’ll have a whole new koi carp to be hunted down by.
Grounded 2’s park has already been confirmed to be about three times bigger than the whole of the first game’s back yard, and with all these biomes it’ll feel massive. The map we already have in the initial early access release is huge, but it seems like the most interesting biomes are still to come.
