What you need to know
- Grounded is an early access open-world survival game from Obsidian Entertainment with "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" vibes.
- The game gets monthly content updates with regular patches and fixes to bring it closer to a final public release.
- Today, the Grounded team is officially releasing the 0.9.0 April Content Update on Xbox and PC.
- This update includes new curved building pieces, ladders, Photo Mode support in multiplayer, a new creative game mode, and more.
Every Grounded update brings us closer to the end of Grounded's early access and the fabled 1.0 public release of Obsidian Entertainment's charming open-world survival game. Today, players will be able to jump into the 0.9.0 April Content Update for Grounded, which includes a ton of new building features, quality-of-life enhancements, and so much more for players to look forward to in Grounded. As per usual, there's also a new developer vlog that helps break down some of the new features.
We also have the full changelog, which sees some very minor changes from the Grounded 0.9.0 Public Test from last week.
The April Content Update for Grounded features a ton of bug fixes and general improvements to various parts of the game, but it also includes exciting building additions like ladders and new curved building pieces. This should add even more variety to Grounded's already solid base-building. In addition, the Photo Mode introduced in the Grounded March Content Update is also getting support for multiplayer lobbies, a new creative game mode with bugs is here, and new combat music has been added.
Grounded is an open-world survival game on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC, where players are shrunk down to the size of insects. It's an interesting concept for a survival game, and the small team at Obsidian Entertainment has been absolutely nailing it when it comes to updates and communication. When Grounded is finishing, it stands a great chance of immediately hopping onto our list of best Xbox games, and has already earned its place as one of the best survival games on Xbox.
The full changelog for the Grounded 0.9.0 April Content Update includes:
New features
Buildings
- Ladders
- Unlocked via the Hedge BURG.L Chip
- Curved Walls, Floors, and Railings
- 3 Curved Grass Walls
- 2 Curved Grass Floors
- 3 Curved Stem Walls
- 2 Curved Stem Floors
- 2 Curved Railings
- Unlocked via the Pond BURG.L Chip
Creative with Bugs
- New Mode Added: Creative with Bugs
- All the building and crafting perks of Creative mode but with all of the bugs spawned in the yard which are completely docile to you
Photo Mode
- Photo Mode Multiplayer Support:
- All players enter and exit photo mode at the same time; the game pauses
- Each player controls their character's pose and visibility
- Each player controls their own camera location and settings
- Four new poses: Modish Max, Wallowing Willow, Heroic Hoops, and Perilous Pete
UI
- Recipes are now sorted by subcategories in the Construction radial and in the Crafting menu. Within subcategories, recipes are sorted by their tier
- Added a take-all option for processing buildings like the Spinning Wheel
Music
- New combat music when fighting weaker bugs (Mites, Spiderlings, and Water Fleas)
Save games
- Save games are significantly smaller on disk
- Playthroughs in the Save Game UI are grouped and collapsed together making for easier navigation of playthroughs with lots of saves across multiple playthroughs
Changes & tuning
Combat
- Attacks can now be canceled into a block at any point during the animation
- Attacks now consume stamina on startup rather than on the hit frame
- Stinkbugs have a new attack
Interface
- Attack interaction display has been updated to match the new interact UI changes from last patch for consistency
World
- Increased the draw distance of bases for hosts on higher graphics quality
- Signs can be placed on walls more reliably
- Egg hatching now plays visual and sound effects
Buildings
- Lure Traps and Spike Traps will now take damage as enemies use / interact with them
Crafting
- "Beefy Smoothie?" can now be crafted at the Smoothie Station
Optimization
- Improved render performance for games with lots of buildings
- Improved CPU performance with games with lots of buildings
- Improved rendering performance for the Xbox One and Xbox One S
- Reduced the delay before opening the main UI window
- Reduced the delay before opening the Building radial
- Reduced the delay before navigating to the Data page
Bug fixes
Top community issues
- Save games should now properly display the mode in the multiplayer lobby
- Promised Chipsleuth quest science rewards will now be correctly shown to clients
- Throwing grass blades or weed stems in third person no longer has most of them thrown to the side
- Creatures no longer walk through walls when not looking at them
- Crow Feathers despawn after a while if not harvested
- Signs can be placed on walls more reliably
World
- Underwater-capable buildings can no longer be built on bubbles
- Floors can no longer be built entirely under the ground
- Structures placed on floors will be invalidly invalid less often
- The player can no longer zip off a zipline when zipping up it
- Wall-mounted buildings can no longer be attached to dropped items
- Structures can not be completed while a character or creature is inside of them
- Buildings can now be placed in specific spots inside the Oak Tree where they previously couldn't be
- Foliage such as grass blades that is moved between patches will no longer duplicate itself
Items, equipment, & resources
- Doors can now be built facing other doors
- Weapon Wall Mounts and wall-mounted trophies no longer fall through the world when collapsed
- Harvested flower petals will no longer spawn inside the flower
- Spiral Stairs can no longer be placed underwater or inside blocking objects
- Plank and Log Pallets will align to the terrain better during placement
- Crow Feathers no longer respawn when harvesting them, walking away, and returning back
- Stuffed Bee now properly swings after save / load
- Wall-mounted buildings are easier to place on Stem Walls and Palisades
Creatures
- Ant Eggs will now hatch properly while inside inventories
- All types of creatures will now correctly create ripples in water
Photo Mode
- Depth of Field now applies properly when entering Photo Mode
- Photo Mode can now be exited even when the HUD is toggled off
- Blocking, aiming, and charged attacks now release upon exiting Photo Mode without firing
- Lighting in dark areas is now properly applied in Photo Mode
- Axes and Splatburst no longer stick to the free cam when falling
- Film grain and chromatic aberration settings in photo mode now work in Low Quality
- Photo mode free camera movement now uses remappable keyboard bindings
UI
- The interaction UI no longer displays when on a zipline
- The Crafting menu will not lag as much when switching between certain items
- Building UI's, such as the Container and Spinning Wheel interfaces, will be closed if the building is relocated too far away while they are open
- Characters are less likely to appear headless when finishing a conversation with BURG.L or interacting with certain items
Xbox platforms
- Players with a ton of buildings crafted and who could no longer create new save games will be able to make new saves again
It's a big(ger) world out there.
Obsidian Entertainment makes its exclusive debut on Xbox One and PC with Grounded, a unique survival experience that literally makes all of your problems much, much bigger. Join your friends as you're shrunk down to the size of an ant and are forced to survive in a dangerous backyard.
