How Grounded 2 Turned a Solo Player Into a Co op Fan
For many PC gamers, multiplayer is the main attraction. Co op sessions, PvP showdowns, MMOs and chaotic party games are often where the best stories come from. But for some players, it is exactly the opposite. Multiplayer can feel stressful, noisy and full of other people getting in the way of how you want to play.
This is the perspective of a long time single player focused PC gamer who unexpectedly found their Personal Game of the Year 2025 in Grounded 2. Not because it is the deepest RPG or the biggest open world but because it did something much rarer. It made a stubborn solo player genuinely enjoy multiplayer gaming again.
Across 2025 this player tried 32 new PC releases. Some were quick tests for PC performance benchmarking. Others, like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, soaked up more than 100 hours. Yet the game that really stood out was Grounded 2, a survival crafting sequel they thought they should not enjoy at all.
The twist is they had already played over 100 hours of the original Grounded and liked it. The real conflict was not with the survival genre itself but with multiplayer. Co op, PvE, PvP, any experience that relies on other people had always been a turn off. They preferred single player where you control the pace, style and level of chaos with no need to adjust for anyone else.
Grounded was the first game to chip away at that mindset. Grounded 2 finished the job.
Why Grounded 2 Works So Well As A Co op PC Game
Grounded 2 is a classic survival crafter at heart. You explore a giant backyard world as a shrunken human, scavenging materials, building bases and fighting off oversized insects and other threats. It leans heavily into a sense of adventure rather than punishing players for experimentation.
Multiplayer survival games often struggle with balance between solo play and team play. Some heavily reward large coordinated groups and leave solo players feeling underpowered. Others focus on PvP where every encounter with another player is a potential disaster.
Grounded 2 takes a different approach. Whether you choose to play as a tight unit with friends or split off on high risk solo scouting missions, the game does not harshly punish either style. You can:
- Team up to gather resources efficiently and take on tougher enemies together.
- Go off alone to recon new areas, poke into dangerous corners and discover routes and secrets.
- Rejoin your group and share stories of close calls and weird encounters.
The game’s design avoids making teamwork feel mandatory while still making it rewarding. You do not feel forced into a particular playstyle. Instead you are encouraged to chase fun and curiosity. That is a big part of why this formerly solo only player could relax into the experience instead of resenting the presence of others.
Grounded 2 also skips straight PvP. There is no constant fear of another player suddenly ruining your progress for laughs. The focus is on shared exploration and problem solving. The tension comes from the environment and the creatures in it, not from human opponents trying to grief you.
There are still wonderfully chaotic moments though. The article mentions Peak, another multiplayer game played this year, where sprinting off to grab a health kit and leaving your partner stranded on a mountainside felt dangerously close to PvP, at least judging from the curses heard over voice chat. Grounded 2 hits a similar sweet spot, where co op mishaps are funny and memorable rather than frustrating.
Family Friendly Multiplayer That Actually Clicks
Grounded 2 was not the only multiplayer game to land this year. Peak and Split Fiction also made the short list of games that this player genuinely enjoyed with others. The key connection between the three is not just genre or mechanics but the people playing them.
All three games clicked with the player’s partner and wider family. They became shared experiences instead of just games on a personal backlog. Other multiplayer games had been tried before, but they never really gelled in the same way. Grounded 2 and its predecessor stood out as the best of the bunch for bringing everyone together.
Moments like building bases, facing down giant bugs and shouting in disbelief at the sheer size of some enemies created the kind of stories that are retold later with laughter. Those Hell’s teeth did you see the size of that thing reactions are exactly the kind of memories co op games are meant to create.
Importantly, Grounded 2 launched into early access just like the first game. The full release is not expected until late 2026 or beyond. That slow burn is a positive in this case. Major content updates give the group a reason to keep coming back, jumping in for a fresh burst of exploration and crafting whenever something new drops, then drifting off to other games until the next big patch.
It becomes a recurring co op ritual instead of a one and done experience.
Not The Best Game Of 2025 But Definitely The Most Surprising
The author is clear that Grounded 2 is not their absolute best game of 2025. It is not the one they played the most and not even necessarily the one they enjoyed the most in isolation. But it earns their Personal Pick because of what it represents.
For a player who proudly identified as a single player only gamer for nearly two decades, finding a game that genuinely changes how they feel about multiplayer is a big deal. Grounded 2 did not just provide a fun survival sandbox. It made them reconsider an entire way of playing games. That alone makes it special.
Will this be a permanent conversion to the multiplayer lifestyle? Probably not. The article ends with a joking reminder that people are still people and that solo gaming will likely remain their default for life. But Grounded 2 proved that with the right design and the right group, co op PC gaming can be magic even for the most dedicated lone wolf.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/out-of-all-the-new-games-ive-played-in-2025-grounded-2-deserves-a-special-nod-simply-because-it-makes-me-like-a-genre-that-i-really-dont-like-multiplayer-survival/
