Grounded does not have chapters. It has a yard, and the yard is gated by what can kill you rather than by locked doors. This is the order most players end up going in, and the reason each step comes when it does.
The oak tree and the first day
You start near the Mysterious Machine. Grab grass planks and weed stems immediately, build a lean-to so you have a respawn point, and find the field station nearby.
Your first real objective is the Oak Tree lab, which needs no special gear. It gives you BURG.L, and BURG.L gives you the shop that everything else runs through. Do this before exploring anywhere interesting.
Analyse everything you pick up at a field station. Raw Science is the bottleneck for the whole game and early analysis compounds.
The grasslands and your first real weapon
Clover armour and an ant club get you through the grasslands. The first genuine threat is the soldier ants and the orb weavers near the hedge.
Do not fight a wolf spider yet. You will lose. This is the part of the game where retreating is the correct answer roughly half the time.
Priorities here: acorn armour from the oak tree, a bow, and enough spider parts for a dagger once you can manage an orb weaver with traps and a wall.
The hedge, and learning verticality
The hedge introduces height and the fall damage that comes with it. Build zip lines. They are cheap, and they turn a dangerous climb into a commute.
Hedge broodmother is the first boss and she is optional. Do her once you have tier two gear and mithridatism started, not before.
The pond and breathing underwater
Water is a hard gate. You need a bubble helmet before the pond is anything other than a drowning hazard.
Once you can breathe, the pond holds submerged lab data, the diving bell, and the materials for tier two water gear. Koi fish are dangerous and worth the scales.
The upper yard, haze and the anthill
The haze is gated on a gas mask. The black ant hill is gated on being able to survive black soldier ants, which is a step up from red.
This is where the game expects you to have mutations levelled and a damage type matched to your target. Bring busting for the ants.
Infected broodmother sits behind the haze, and she is a real difficulty spike.
The sandbox and the upper grasslands
Late-game territory. Wolf spiders here come in numbers, and the sandbox introduces enemies that punish sloppy blocking.
By now you should be running tier three gear, a fully levelled mutation set, and a weapon of each damage type.
The final labs
The remaining BURG.L chips and the story conclusion sit behind the toughest areas in the yard. There is no trick to them beyond gear and preparation.
The Grounded builds guide covers damage types and mutations, which matter more here than raw gear tier.
