ive had both for a long time. im playing valheim atm still and not grounded even tho it had its release. it has not replaced valheim by any means and never has. heck i still have moineceraft i play here and there. nothing has 'replaced it'.
but then... msfs sim 2020 and xplane 12 are bopth on my hard drive. some people think it has to be one thing or another.. and im wondering why there has to be a choice at all, unless you literally can only afford one game.
whats with all this polar extreme?

looks like Epic movie meets Arthur and the incredibles.. but not my thing ..thnx 4 heads up though!

Grounded is alright but it reminds me why i've avoided most survival/crafting games until Valheim: The building and the combat. Grounded's building is so rigid. I feel like I'm bound to building basic shapes, or wrestling with the terrain for the game to decide whether or not something is "supported" or not. I much prefer the freedom Valheim offers.

And the combat in Grounded is..ok. My main gripe is that bug attacks don't have to hit they player for it to register as a hit. I can backup a few feet trying to dodge the attack but the game seems to have a "the bug started it's animation before you backed up, therefor it's going to hit you regardless" policy and I'm still getting used to it.

The rest is pretty sweet. The atmosphere, the crafting, the theme, the quests, the size of the "world". I like that it is a curated level, so you're encouraged to search for secrets in specific places. Is it the "new Valheim"? not sure what you mean. If it's a game you're playing while waiting for valheim content, sure.

Fun game, played since day one of EA.
Has come a LONG way now that it is fleshed out and has a story and the full map, I play solo and its a bit of a challenge to get into some areas and fight bosses but its ment to be play with up to 4 players. No you don't need a xbox account to play.

Only played a bit of both, but Grounded has a story, easier to get into and is much less anger inducing/annoying to play (You can't take ore through teleporters?!?), though I do like the souls-like combat of Valheim more.
So far, overall, I would say I like Grounded more.

Grounded is actually a complete game. Highly doubtful this will see more than mythlands if that.

Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

I've considered playing it.
Some things stop me though..
1. You need an xbox/microsoft account to play multiplayer.
2. Connection bugs cause loss of stuff due to having to connect through microsoft.
3. Game is more balanced around multiplayer. Single player would have a rough time of it in combat and grind.
4. Due to balance for multiplayer and connection issues with microsoft I don't see having a good time if solo is unbalanced and multiplayer has bugs.

I have over 160hrs solo, it's not that bad. Planning/strategy just like Valheim for most part.

Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

I've considered playing it.
Some things stop me though..
1. You need an xbox/microsoft account to play multiplayer.
2. Connection bugs cause loss of stuff due to having to connect through microsoft.
3. Game is more balanced around multiplayer. Single player would have a rough time of it in combat and grind.
4. Due to balance for multiplayer and connection issues with microsoft I don't see having a good time if solo is unbalanced and multiplayer has bugs.

As someone who plays solo. I can safely say that that there are a couple of nice settings you can change to make it a better experience, like turning off the weapon durability, diffiulty settings etc. Enemy health also scales per player. Solo scaling is okay. Nothing feels like a dmg sponge. The only thing that requires some grind is the weapon and tool durability to repair your stuff.

Can't say much about mp stuff since I play solo only. Experience there seem to vary per player.

I've considered playing it.
Some things stop me though..
1. You need an xbox/microsoft account to play multiplayer.
2. Connection bugs cause loss of stuff due to having to connect through microsoft.
3. Game is more balanced around multiplayer. Single player would have a rough time of it in combat and grind.
4. Due to balance for multiplayer and connection issues with microsoft I don't see having a good time if solo is unbalanced and multiplayer has bugs.

That's what Obsidian has been doing for Microsoft?! I never would have guessed.

I play and enjoy both, but I prefer Valheim. Grounded makes me very motionsick and I honestly just like the appearance, pace, and building mechanics of Valheim more. Grounded is nice and challenging, though.

I do agree that both are good! You should try both. You might prefer one to the other, or you might like both just as well.

well, Grounded is released now and valheim is still in early access and missing features (like 3 more biomes have no content in them)

as to which one is better: its subjective, you might have a different opinion than i do

but i did play the free weekend they had and it was pretty fun (talking about grounded)
Both games are fun but again, if you are planning on buying one or the other, i suggest going for grounded as it is fully released now and i have no idea how long valheim will be in early access for. Its been a while already, but im sure it will get a full release eventually.

Plus grounded has a full storyline and valheim is a lot more sandboxy. so they are very different games tbh

Regardless of which one you choose im sure you will enjoy both of them, they are both really good
I know i enjoyed valheim more but I havent played it since i did all the boss fights, now im just waiting for the new biomes to get implemented.

Valheim is the far bigger game yet alone because of the huge soulless map. Grounded is nicely condensed. Not to big.. not to small... handcrafted and not %generated it's also complete.

Building in Grounded is.. kinda meh since you only can craft like one or two parts before you need to get another stack of materials. It's realistic that the kid you play can only hold like 5-8 planks but .. meh. Thats where valheim gets my one and only +1. Even tho I don't particulary like it here either, everything is so grind heavy in both games.. just that in valheim you would need +1000-100k stones, wood etc for stuff while in grounded you would need +10-1000 of materials depending ofc what and how big you wanna build. In grounded you can at least build some stuff to get around far quicker. With some effort you can zipline to every location without ever running there again. Which is super nice.

Combat is better in grounded since weapons feel far better to swing. In Valheim everything feels like you slice through butter.. no weight to it.. enemies only have like 2 poorly telegraphed attacks while in Grounded there are at least 3 different attacks per bigger bug. Tension also is far different since there actually are dangerous creatures you can't really exploit the ♥♥♥♥ out of. In valheim the only thing that gets you killed is gravity and being overwhelmed by numbers not because some mob is challenging to fight.

Nights in grounded are scary as hell and the only game that requires me to sleep lol. The amount of times I nearly ♥♥♥♥ in my pants in the night because some wolf spider roamed around silently. Valheim could never reproduce it.

Also Grounded isn't some eternal early access game. What they did in 2 years... IG would need 10. It's story based and complete. While Valheim is more like an unfinished terraria sandbox in 3D.

Graphics in grounded are beautiful, Artstyle too.. if you turn down the dof effect in the ini file.. it triggered some headaches for me so it's nice we can turn it down there. While I dont really hate valheims artstyle I quickly used some graphic mods which enhanced my fun with the game. Grounded does not require anything like that since it's just beautiful.

Creature design is awesome. While I still get some goosebumps fighting some spiders.. beating the ♥♥♥♥ out of them helps getting rid of the anxiety. Spiders are scary af but they somehow did it that they are also kinda cute if you focus only on the face lol.

Especially the diving bell spiders in the pond (yes you can actually swim in Grounded.. and you have to !) while easy to fight .. still creep me out. Water+Spiders.. not a good combination for me.

Base defense events are also better in Grounded since you can't just dig moats for success. Even tho building high also can delete that one feature for your playthrough. But it at least feels realistic instead of the dumb AI valheim has where they just wait there looking dumb until you decide to fight them outside of your base.

That said. Grounded.. same as valheim has some serious clipping and mobs getting stuck issues. I don't think devs can ever fix this but it's a minor thing imho.

Since I'm a fan of complete games and no eternal early access games my vote goes to Grounded. Playing a survival game that actually is complete and next to finished (dunno if they plan to develop more content for grounded) surely is nice since this genre if flooded with eternal never get done early access games.

looks like Epic movie meets Arthur and the incredibles.. but not my thing ..thnx 4 heads up though!

I play Grounded, it‘s a lot of fun (unless you have an issue with spiders). You kinda can compare it to Valheim (besides the overall setting). I think building is better in Valheim, but „story“ and humor is better in Grounded. Also Grounded is limited to four players in coop.

Grounded looks quite good. It is a 40€ fully released game made by Obsidian, published by Microsoft though, so circumstances are a bit different. Still an interesting game that may be worth getting.