Grounded: How to play the back garden co-operative survival game and is it cross-play?

If you've ever wanted to play your own version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, then look no further than Grounded. This survival game sees your character shrunk down to smaller than an ant and left to fend for themselves in the great wilderness that is the backyard.

Collect pebbles and plant fibres to make weapons, like an axe to chop down towering blades of grass or a sword and shield to defend yourself when creepy crawlies attack. Speaking of, walk among worker ants and ladybugs as you build a base or venture out to fight termites, beetles and the most terrifying spiders.

But arachnophobes fear not, for the devs of Grounded want you to play too. The creators of the game have included a special arachnophobia mode that has five settings to scale down the big, eight-legged beasts from terrifying creatures to nothing more than a blob with red eyes.

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How can I play Grounded?

Grounded is available to buy now on PC and Xbox. It's available to buy on the Mircosoft store or Steam for around £35.

For those who subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass or PC Game Pass, the game is included there. The subscription costs £7.99 a month for console or PC or £10.99 a month for both, though your first month can cost just £1.

Players can fight huge creatures like spiders and face off against bosses like the orchid mantis (Obsidian/Xbox Game Studios)

It is created by Obsidian, the developers behind Fallout: New Vegas and South Park: The Stick of Truth, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2018. Thanks to this, it's unlikely that Grounded will become available for rival consoles the PlayStation or Nintendo Switch.

Is Grounded multi-player?

Yes! One of the best elements of Grounded is that up to four players can play in the same backyard, making your stand against the bugs a lot easier when you have backup.

Is Grounded cross-platform?

Thankfully, also yes. That means if you have friends who play on Xbox while you have a PC, you can all play together.

What's better is that Grounded includes an in-game voice chat feature, so there's no worrying about who goes where and does what.

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