Obsidian Entertainment"s miniaturized survival game Grounded is continuing to receive Early Access updates as the game moves towards its 1.0 release. Today the studio brought forth its latest content update. Dubbed The Bugs Strike Back, it delivers more bug combat opportunities, new base defenses, a new way to gather Raw Science, and more.
Jumping right into it, players will now find that bugs will seek revenge if others of their kind are killed or their territories are intruded too many times. This feature is named Faction Reactivity, and the hostile response of bugs is dependent on how much they are being bothered.
If fighting hordes of bugs is exactly what players want to do, however, then the new Waft Emitter item will serve that function. Piling bug parts into this space will trigger all nearby bugs of that type to get enraged and home in on players for lots of action.
Keeping to the bug fighting theme of the update, Obsidian has also implemented MIX.Rs, a new type of machine found at various points in the yard. Turning it on will get players a large amount of Raw Science, but any nearby bugs will also be incoming to destroy the process, setting up a horde mode scenario.
To help with all this fighting, new permanent buffs to armor as upgrades as well as new turrets have been added. The Pollen Turret will slow down and stun any attacking bugs, while the Pebble Turret will help with dealing damage to incoming hordes. There is also the new Explosive Burr Traps to help defense arrangements even further.
The final piece of this hefty update is PEEP.R, a scanning system for players to find out the weaknesses and resistances of all the critters found in the yard.
The Grounded "The Bugs Strike Back" update is now available across PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, as well as Xbox and PC Game Pass subscriptions. Earlier this year the game hit 10 million total players, and the development team is planning to launch version 1.0 sometime later this year. Expect to see and hear more about Grounded in the upcoming Xbox and Bethesda Showcase as well.