The survival genre is one of the favorites of MeinMMO editor Maik Schneider. Surviving with friends, taming the game, conquering the world – that’s his thing. However, if you don’t rent a server, there’s always a problem: Who hosts and thus has the save file? Grounded has a simple but fantastic solution.
As a trained console gamer, survival games came to me quite late. On PC, the genre is significantly larger. It really started with the dino game ARK. Before that, we only had Minecraft, which I don’t really classify as a survival game.
Then came hits like Conan Exiles, the review queen Terraria or the zombie adventure 7 Days to Die. I was never alone; I always had a few controller heroes with me – but that was also a certain problem.
For a long time, rental servers for PlayStation games weren’t available. Even today, you need luck, and not always do the latest survival titles support rental servers on consoles.
So someone always had to host the server. To continue playing in the world, you need the host – he has the save file, he can start the world. Additionally, many PlayStation games tie their save files to the user. It’s very rare to be able to quickly copy them over.
This problem isn’t always avoided even on PC. It’s an annoying matter that somehow has to be solved. The survival title Grounded shows us how it’s done.
We are embedding a trailer for the game featuring the mini-people in the garden here:
Grounded lets you easily share hosted servers
In Grounded, you are teens who are involved in a shrinking incident. You are about half the height of a ladybug and must somehow survive in the garden – build a house from blades of grass, collect dew in the morning, and eat aphid broilers.
A wonderful survival game that I have already enjoyed in Early Access:
After the end of Early Access, the complete story is now in the game. Grounded is similar to the ocean adventure Raft and can be completed.
However, a seemingly small feature was also introduced that I celebrated immediately: shareable servers with friends:
I can give a fellow player full control over the server and don’t always have to host myself. A small revolution!
There are drawbacks. First and foremost, you need trustworthy players. Backups cannot be created, and if a “friend” wreaks havoc in the world, it cannot be fixed with a click. Additionally, an Xbox account is mandatory, even for the Steam version.
Both are something I can live with.
Leave me a comment with your impression of the feature. Do you have any tips if there are other survival titles that already have such a feature?
If you are always looking for your next survival adventure, be sure to check our list of the best survival games: The 25 best survival games for PlayStation, PC, and Xbox
