Grounded 1 Story recap: What happened before Grounded 2?

Grounded 2 was released on July 29, 2025, and takes us back into the story of the four teens who got shrunk down to the size of insects and were trapped in a backyard. The game has the same four playable characters — Pete, Max, Hoops, and Willow — from the original title, which was released on September 27, 2022.

This article will go over the key events of Grounded 1 and explain the previous title's storyline now that Grounded 2 has been released on multiple platforms.

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Grounded 1 storyline takes us through the wild backyard before Grounded 2

Beginning

BURG.L robot in Grounded (Image via Xbox Games Studio)

In Grounded 1, Max, Willow, Hoops, and Pete go missing as the game starts with a news report discussing the string of disappearances.

Once you pick a character, the teens find themselves in a backyard with no memory of how they got there in the first place. As they explore the backyard, much like they do in Grounded 2, they come across recordings of one Dr. Wendell Tully, the man who created the SPAC.R machine responsible for shrinking the teens to miniature sizes.

Now that it's clear that they're stuck in Tully's backyard, the teens manage to find the SPAC.R machine, but it malfunctions and misfires, causing an explosion in a tree.

When they inspect the tree, they discover a secret shrunken lab and BURG.L, Dr. Tully's robotic assistant, who reports that it has lost its memory files thanks to the explosion.

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Ominent's Experiments

Schmector's experiments (Image via Xbox Games Studio)

In spite of no memories, BURG.L helps the children with blueprints and survival tips. Meanwhile, the team of friends set off to locate the memory chips scattered across the lab and help the robot retrieve its memories. During this process, the teens also regain their memories.

They realize that they were kidnapped by a company called Ominent. The evil organization experimented on them, and once they were no longer useful, Lead project director Dalton Schmector asked them to be disposed of. However, seemingly, Tully took pity on the children and brought them to his backyard.

Eventually, BURG.L regains its memories and tells the teens that the SPAC.R's side effects include the Raisining Syndrome, where the shrunken person eventually shrivels up much like a raisin. However, this did not affect children, which explains the illegal experiments on kidnapped children by Ominent.

Though the organization has seemingly found a cure now, they still do not know how to bring the shrunken back to normal size. This can only be achieved by one man and his Embiggening Formula, and that is Dr. Tully.

With BURG. L's memories recovered, it points them towards Dr. Tully's last known location, where the teens find a recording. The tape reveals that Dr. Tully has begun to experience the Raisining Syndrome, which means his life was in grave danger.

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Dr. Tully and the cure

Dr. Tully in shriveled form (Image via Xbox Games Studio)

When the teens find Dr. Tully, the syndrome's grip on the scientist becomes apparent. He appears in a near-death state and is being kept alive by life support. He recalls how Dalton Schmector was his supervisor and is now set to take credit for his SPAC.R invention. Seeing the situation of the teens, Dr. Tully instructs them to build the Embiggening Formula to bring them back to normal size.

However, once they start creating the formula, Ominent will know, and their army of mind-controlled bugs will run the operation amok. The teens can then go ahead and make the formula or take down Schmector's surveillance robot. Doing the latter first gives the children a disk with Ominent's research data and the cure for the Raisining Syndrome.

Therefore, the ending depends on the team's choice in Grounded, which could possibly also be the case for Grounded 2.

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Alternate endings

If you decide to just create the formula and get out, the teens will have no proof of their experience, Schmector will get away with it all, while Dr. Tully will forever remain in his shriveled form, even though he reunites with his family.

However, if the teens decide to deal with Schmector and his surveillance robot and then create the formula, Dr. Tully will return to a normal state, and Schmector and Ominent will be put under criminal investigations for unethical human experimentation.

In a nutshell, this is the story of Grounded 1. In Grounded 2, Ominent returns once again, but its intentions may be even more nefarious than before. A new central figure seemingly takes the lead at Ominent while the kids return to their shrunken habitat for some unknown reason.