Grounded 2: Beat the Heat update is out now and it comes with a bevy of new content. A new big boss fight with a bearded lizard called King Dozer whose materials unlock new weapons and armor to craft, as well as unlocking unique furniture. Also, there’s a new buggy progression system that allows you to upgrade your buggies and make them a core part of your build. The map is also expanding with additional point-of-interest landmarks like the Sinkhole Anthill, and it’s bringing new creatures, resources, and gear. Updates based on feedback include combat and survival reworks like now being able to block with the bow, smoother inventory navigation, and clearer bandage healing values in menus.

The update is quite large and is bringing plenty new to the picnic table, but for our demo at Summer Game Fest, we were focused on the big scaly boy, King Dozer. The demo was setup to only showcase the King Dozer boss fight with me and three other players. We were given a ton of resources, all the weapon types, armor, and even the Orb Weaver buggy. King Dozer isn’t some random enemy you find in the wild, you will need a special item to summon it in its chambers to initiate the fight. Even with all the gear they gave us, it was still a difficult fight.

Meet King Dozer, he’s about to whoop you.

After initiating the boss battle, King Dozer bashes through the dirt ceiling crashing down in the middle of the arena, rubble and rocks dropping everywhere hurting the players if hit. From here the battle is non-stop frantic combat as King Dozer unleashes quite a few different attacks to look out for. It of course has biting, tail whipping, and will swipe with its claws, as well as barrel into you with a rush attack.

He can also smash into the ground and cause more debris and rocks to fall from the dirt ceiling to injure multiple players. King Dozer is also very quick, and quite large, so even if you try and keep your distance, he can turn to you and attack very quickly. A mix of bows, and two-handed weapons were needed as well as keeping our orb weaver buggies alive to do additional damage.

Watch out for his fire attacks, they are devastating.

The biggest obstacle, however, was when it would turn up the heat and go rage mode. Here there are multiple things to worry about. King Dozer starts flowing with lava and will spit massive fireballs for huge damage as well as leave fire on the ground for constant damage if you don’t get out of the area. He will also do a tongue lashing attack that can hit you from a distance. While the heat is turned up, you will need to monitor heat exhaustion by drinking water. However, that is only a temporary fix.

The only way to cool King Dozer down is by working together and fixing the burst water pipes in the arena. While that may seem easy, when you have a hundred foot fire breathing bearded dragon whooping your butt it gets dicey. My teammates ended up dying which caused the developer to let me know we were just going to restart. But with a second try, knowing better what we needed to do, we were able to take down King Dozer.

Fixing up all the burst pipes is the only way to cool down King Dozer.

It still wasn’t easy, and it is a decently long fight, like I said, even with the full gear they gave us it was still a battle. Regular players will need to make sure to be well prepared for this fight. While we didn’t get to check out the rest of the update content since this was just focused on the boss, Grounded 2: Beat the Heat is looking to be a hefty update that should keep players busy and entertained!

Grounded 2 is currently in Early Access for Xbox Series X|S and PC, with PlayStation 5 coming August 11th. It is also available on Game Pass. The Grounded 2: Beat the Heat update is out!