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It’s easy to create a shared world in Grounded to 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
In Grounded, players can either select a Single Player solo campaign to play alone, or they can pick Host Online Game in the multiplayer mode to set up an online server and join up with friends in online co-op. Select New Game to start a new game from scratch, or press Continue to select a save file already created. Players can then select their character and 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 about Grounded is 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 easily invite other players to this file by hosting an online game in multiplayer mode. Players can even create a standard copy of files by pressing the right trigger on an Xbox controller if 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, but it’s only possible to join or load up shared worlds in online multiplayer.
How To Create A Shared World
In Grounded, 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 world in Grounded, in the multiplayer menu, players need to click on the save file they want to share with friends and press the left stick on an Xbox controller to make it a shared world file, giving it a blue icon. Players then manually select those on their friends list who they want to grant host access by searching for their gamer tag, and there’s also the option to add a password for added protection and privacy.
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In addition to the blue icon, shared world files display the gamer tag of the shared world owner at the top of the file, and if players want to unshare a world they need to press the X button.
How To Access Shared Worlds Playing Solo
It’s worth noting that players can play their shared world files on their own in online multiplayer, and friends don’t need to join. To do this, click Continue in the multiplayer menu followed by Host Online Game in multiplayer mode, and select the shared world file to enter the game lobby alone. If for any reason players want to load a shared world in single-player, they must first create a standard copy in multiplayer to load it up in single-player.
How To Save Shared Worlds
Although Grounded autosaves player progress at various points during a playthrough, such as when a player logs out, one drawback of shared worlds is the game only creates one save for each shared world and no separate backup saves. Therefore, it’s worth players saving regularly in-game, and using the standard copy function as 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.
Grounded is available to play on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S and is free to play on Xbox Game Pass.
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