Grounded is getting a new feature leading up to its big 1.0 release next month, and it could be the “home stretch” feature recently teased by game director Adam Brennecke.

It’s called Shared Worlds, and they offer a new type of multiplayer save that can be shared with friends so they can host when you’re not online.

Related: Obsidian Interview: Grounded Major Update, Ending Early Access, And Empowering The Community To Help Shape The Future

"Shared Worlds are stored in the cloud and you can share them with any of your friends so they can host that world while you are not online," writes Obsidian on the official Grounded forums. The idea here is for a consistent multiplayer experience across trusted friends. Shared Worlds allows for hosting duties to be shared across several users so you can drop off and then return to the same world.

There are, of course, some rules to follow with Shared Worlds. You can’t own more than 3 shared worlds at any given time, although you can have up to 50 worlds shared with you at once. Shared Worlds only work for multiplayer and only one person can host a Shared World at a time.

It’s easy to swap between Shared and Standard Worlds, which are the save files that have been used in Grounded since day one. You can convert Standard Worlds into Shared Worlds via the save/load menu, and you can copy Shared Worlds as Standard Worlds too (note the word "copy" since you can’t take away a Shared World once it’s been shared).

Shared Worlds are also persistent. Any game progress that happens while you’re hosting will be given to other players even if they log off, although one assumes their inventories and character abilities will remain the same.

Obsidian is also warning us that Shared Worlds is a beta feature, and they might have to reset or remove access to Shared Worlds if a major bug is found. It’s recommended that you back up any save files as Standard Worlds periodically.

Grounded celebrates its full release on September 27. Be sure to check out Xbox at Gamescom for a preview of what's to come in Grounded's 1.0 release.

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