Obsidian’s Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Kids-style game has returned with Grounded 2, and backyard survival can still be quite the struggle. You need to eat and drink to stay alive, construct shelters to stay safe, and fight off plenty of bugs in the process. Whether you’re a beginner or returning player, we have a few tips to help you stay alive and complete your objectives.

Just like the first game, you want to collect all the materials you can grab in Grounded 2. Pick up items such as pebbles, sap, and clover leaves, and then analyze them to learn new crafting recipes. The tutorial will introduce you to the game’s resource analyzer, which is a machine that lets you analyze resources you’ll find out in the wild.

You want to keep analyzing materials throughout the entire game. Resource analyzers are found at each Ranger Outpost on the map.

Your first main mission objective is to find your first Ranger Outpost, so head to this location as soon as possible and start scanning your materials with the resource analyzer inside. Each Ranger Outpost will have an analyzer, so these are pretty well spread across the map.

The analyzer has a limited battery and has to recharge after you’ve scanned four items, so there is a cooldown period, but you can always just visit a different outpost if you get impatient.

Here we have a full guide for finding and using all the Ranger Outposts in Grounded 2.

Location is important when base building. In the first game, I made my initial base really close to a spider’s den. Lesson learned.

Scout the area before building a base and check for any webs or signs of dangerous life. Building high up is also helpful to keep ants and other critters away from your home. It might not be my final base, but I’ve made a home up on the stacks of wood planks near the starting point.

This might be a good starting point for you, too. It keeps you close to the first Ranger Outpost and you have all of your essential resources close by. You also want to start building your base relatively soon. Like most survival games, the world gets scarier and more difficult to survive at nighttime. You’ll want a safe place to cook food, craft items, and sleep.

Even if you don’t want to commit right away to a full home base, you’ll at least want to find a safe place to craft your Lean-To. Craft this item and interact with it to set it as your respawn point. This also lets you sleep through the night, so you can skip the dangerous nighttime hours and explore more during daylight.

It’s very easy to die in Grounded 2, and you’ll want to make sure you have a safe place to respawn.

A Lean-To costs three Clover Leaves and one Sprig to craft.

The game guides you through building your first trail marker, and this is an item you don’t want to sleep on. The map is huge and can feel disorienting at times, so it helps to mark important areas within the park. I suggest marking your home, areas of interest that you want to come back and explore, and places with important resources.

A trail marker costs two Sprigs, two Plant Fiber, and one Clover Leaf to craft.

An early water source will be the dew drops on the tops of grass blades. Make sure to look up to find these. You can knock them down by punching the grass blade, or you can shoot an arrow up at it. Later, you’ll have enough resources to craft canteens, water containers, and dew collectors.

Your starting area has tons of mushrooms. These aren’t very filling, but this is a quick and easy food source to collect early in your game or when you’re starving and in a pinch. Grubs are an easy food source once you get a shovel, and there are also weevils and aphids you can kill.

Bug meat can be cooked on a roasting spit, but it does have a limited timeframe before it spoils.

You’ll eventually want to craft a jerky rack, as bug jerky won’t spoil and can be stockpiled.

One change in Grounded is the tool system. You no longer craft rudimentary tools like the Pebblet hammer, and instead, the game leads you to an Omni-Tool that must be upgraded to perform the various functions you need. You’ll only have a basic axe to start, and you’ll want to get the shovel and hammer upgrades fast, as these are needed to get important resources for making armor and other survival essentials.

Here we have a complete guide on how to unlock all the Omni-Tool upgrades in Grounded 2.

Spiders and scorpions are some of Grounded 2’s most formidable opponents. You want to make sure you have weapons and armor before attempting to fight these enemies. Practice the game’s combat system with smaller foes like mites and larvae before running off to fight the spiders and big bugs. Even cute ladybugs can feel like awful bullies if you instigate a fight with them too soon.

Practice dodging and blocking attacks early on. You can also craft a bow to play it safer with ranged combat when you tackle larger enemies.

Throughout your adventures in the world of Grounded 2, you’ll often find pink glowing orbs you can collect. These orbs are called Raw Science, a currency used for buying blueprints and crafting.

The orbs make a slight beeping sound, so you know when you’re close to one, and they are also very easy to spot at night. It’s definitely worth collecting these when you can.

You’ll unlock the ability to craft a Smoothie Station early in your campaign. You’ll only have a few recipes to start, but as you scavenge and analyze more resource types, new smoothie recipes become available.

These offer temporary buffs and can be very useful in a variety of situations. Hedge Lord smoothies help you regenerate health faster, while Boost Juice gives you an increase in stamina.

You’ll want to make Blazin’ Brew smoothies to keep you warm when exploring cold areas around the ice cream cart, and the Mintito smoothie to keep you cool in the hot area of the Fire Pit POI.

You might be tiny in Grounded 2, but you can reach any heights by traversing plants and other objects in the world as well as building. You will unlock several building structures you can craft, including clay ramps, scaffolding, grass planks, and even ladders. These items are great for base building, but they can also be used to reach tricky spots on the map. See a blob of Raw Science on the map but can’t reach? Build up.

You’ll eventually learn how to craft stuffed bugs to display and wall-mounted trophies. It sounds silly to recommend decor in a survival situation, but these can be helpful to have at your base.

Wall-mounted bugs can be interacted with and marked as a foe for an additional damage buff. For example, if you’re struggling with fighting the Northern Scorpion, build its wall mount and mark it as your foe.

You can pet the stuffed bugs at your base to cause more to spawn in the world. This is helpful if you’re trying to farm a specific bug/bug part, but they don’t spawn near your base.

Eventually, you’ll reach a mission quest called Signals and Stashes that requires you to visit locations where you will need specific gear in order to survive elemental areas of the map. I recommend working towards these specific gear pieces once you’ve gathered your bearings in the world and have some basic weapons and armor.

You’ll need a gas mask for the trash can area of the map and cold-resistant gear for the cooler on top of the picnic table.

The gas mask requires:

• 1 – Weevil Nose
• 4 – Gnat Fuzz
• 2 – Crude Rope
• 1 – Stink Bug Part

Unfortunately, this means you need to kill a stink bug before you can be immune to their gas or the toxic gas found in the area around the trash can. Staying on the outskirts of the area and using a bow and arrows can be handy here. You can position yourself on one of the higher bricks so the bug can’t reach you.

For the cold-resistant gear, you’ll want the Mitey Muffs headpiece and the Fuzzy Mukluks. There are other ways to resist the cold, but these are the earliest options available to you.

The Mitey Muffs require:

• 5- Mite Fuzz
• 5 – Grub Hide

The Fuzzy Mukluks require:

• 3 – Bee Fuzz
• 2 – Bug Rubber
• 3 – Lingonberry Leather
• 2- Silk Rope