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Groundedis a fun and immersive game to play solo or with friends, but it can be even more rewarding to use its unique shared world feature to share and build adventures together. Sharing a world inGroundedmeans giving specific friends or individuals the ability to hop in and out of their shared stories at any time even if the main host is offline, giving players flexible access to the world they’ve created together, whether that’s gearing up the Roasting Spit orbuilding the base of dreamswhile the other eats their dinner in their real-life home.
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It’s easy to create a shared world inGroundedto set up an awesome online co-op experience, with some added privacy perks and save file options to choose from. However, it may be best to pre-negotiate off-limits missions to avoid any feelings of FMO. This guide details how online co-up works in comparison to shared worlds, and how to create shared world files in online co-op.
How Online Co-Op Works
InGrounded, players can either select a Single Player solo campaign to play alone, or they can pickHost Online Gamein themultiplayer modeto set up an online server and join up with friends inonline co-op. Select New Game to start a new game from scratch, or press Continue to select a save file already created. Players can thenselect their characterand invite up to 4 players to join them in their search, remembering it’s first come, first served when it comes to character selection as players cannot pick the same character.
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One of the great things aboutGroundedis the amount of flexibility and player choice, which extends to game save files. If a player has a single-player or multiplayer campaign game save file, they can easilyinvite other playersto this file byhosting an online gameinmultiplayermode. Players can evencreate a standard copyof files by pressing theright trigger on an Xbox controllerif they fancy continuing the story on their own separately.
Online coop differs slightly from shared worlds in that the original game host must always be online to load the game, whereas shared worlds give players more flexibility. Friends granted access to shared game worlds can load up the shared world game file at any time without the host or file owner’s presence, butit’s only possible to join or load up shared worlds in online multiplayer.
How To Create A Shared World
InGrounded, shared worlds are online shared save files that a host and anyone the host gives access to can access at any time, with or without the original host being online.To create a shared worldinGrounded, in the multiplayer menu, players need to click on the save file they want to share with friends and press theleft stick on an Xbox controllerto make it ashared worldfile, giving it ablue icon. Players then manually select those on their friends list who they want to granthost accessby searching for their gamer tag, and there’s also theoption toadd a passwordfor added protection and privacy.
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In addition to the blue icon, shared world files display thegamer tag of the shared world ownerat the top of the file, and if players want tounshare a worldthey need to press theX button.
How To Access Shared Worlds Playing Solo
It’s worth noting that players canplay their shared world files on their ownin online multiplayer, and friends don’t need to join. To do this, clickContinuein themultiplayermenu followed byHost Online Gamein multiplayer mode, and select the shared world file to enter the gamelobbyalone. If for any reason players want to load ashared world in single-player, they must first create astandard copyin multiplayer to load it up in single-player.
How To Save Shared Worlds
AlthoughGroundedautosaves player progress at various points during a playthrough, such as when a player logs out, one drawback of shared worlds is the game only createsone save for each shared worldandno separate backup saves. Therefore, it’s worth players saving regularly in-game, and using thestandard copy functionas a handy alternative backup just in case.
Overall, shared worlds are beneficial as they can help players make quicker progress together instead of waiting for weekly game nights to roll around, especially if there are people in a crew who have more time on their hands to play and who get to show their pals all the hard work they’ve accomplished when the time comes round.
Groundedis available to play on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S and is free to play on Xbox Game Pass.
