Where to get it

2015 · Ubisoft Reflections · Adventure · Platformer

Grow Home

PlayStation console exclusive

In Grow Home you play as BUD (Botanical Utility Droid), a robot on a mission to save his home planet by harvesting the seeds of a giant alien plant. On his quest BUD will discover a beautiful world of floating islands that are home to some rather strange plants and animals.

Released: 4 February 2015
Platforms: Linux PlayStation 4 Windows
Genres: Adventure Platformer
Developers: Ubisoft Reflections
Publishers: —
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Themes: Science fiction Open world
Country: United Kingdom
Age ratings: PEGI 3 ESRB E
Languages: Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Spain)
Time to beat: 2.5hmain story4hwith extras8hcompletionist

About

Grow Home is an adventure platform video game developed by Ubisoft Reflections and published by Ubisoft. It was released for Microsoft Windows on February 4, 2015, and for PlayStation 4 on September 1, 2015. The game follows a robot named B.U.D., who is tasked with growing a plant that will oxygenate its home planet. Players explore an open world, moving B.U.D. and individually using each of its arms to climb and interact with objects.

Initially developed by a small team at Ubisoft Reflections for internal release, the game became popular between co-workers and was eventually planned for official release, confirmed in a blog post by Ubisoft on January 22, 2015. It was created using the Unity game engine, and contains procedural animation and physics-based gameplay, which allow the player's movements to adapt to the game's environment.

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The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Grow Home is an adventure game played from a third person perspective. D. (Botanical Utility Droid), and are tasked with oxygenating its homeworld by growing and climbing a "Star Plant", a giant beanstalk, and harvesting its seeds. 's left and right hands grab, with a button for each hand.

The player can reach a small distance and grab onto any part of the environment, allowing them to push and climb objects. M. speaks to the player, informing them of gameplay objectives.

Development

Grow Home began development as an experimental project created by an eight-person team at Ubisoft Reflections, initially being launched internally for the staff. After testing the project, management at Ubisoft decided to officially launch the title, which was developed into a full game inspired by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and WALL-E.

Grow Home has a minimalist, low poly graphical style. It uses procedural animation and physics-based gameplay, which allow objects and the player's actions to adapt to any part of the environment. The developers recommend using a gamepad to play the game, as it gives the player "the deepest connection to the gameplay mechanics". The game was created using the Unity engine and, unlike other Ubisoft titles, it does not require Uplay to run.

Reception

The PC version received "generally favorable reviews", while the PlayStation 4 version received "mixed or average reviews", according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

The PC version's open world was highly regarded by critics. PC Gamer's Jordan Erica Webber stated that the game's joy is in discovery. Destructoid's Ben Davis said that he got "more than enough enjoyment out of exploring the world", and Eurogamer's reviewer Christian Donlan called the game's map wonderfully generous and varied. However, reviewers criticised the game's length, with Davis calling it relatively short and both Webber and Donlan stating that it should only take the player a couple of hours or less to complete the game's campaign, although Webber said that the game has a great pace. IGN's Brandin Tyrrel also said that there's little reason to return to the game after completing the main campaign.