Grounded 0.14.0 'Home Stretch' available now, final content update before full release

(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

What you need to know

Grounded is an upcoming survival game from Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios.
Ahead of Grounded's full release, Obsidian Entertainment is releasing the game's final early access content update.
0.14.0 "Home Stretch" includes dozens of new features, changes, and fixes, included new Shared Worlds.
The major release is now rolling out to players with a new pet, changes to upgrades and cooking, and much more.

One of the most fascinating titles coming out of the Xbox Game Studios family in the last two years has been Grounded, a passion project helmed by a small team at Obsidian Entertainment. This unique survival game has expanded and evolved in innumerable ways since its early access debut over two years ago, and is now gearing up for its final public release on Sept. 27, 2022.

Ahead of that release date, Obsidian Entertainment is rolling out the game's final early access content update. The 0.14.0 update, dubbed the "Home Stretch" update, is now available to Grounded players on Xbox and PC platforms, and it's packed to the brim with new features, major changes and improvements, and plenty of bug fixes.

Players can enjoy a new cooking station, updates to how armor and weapon upgrades function, better-balanced combat and base attacks, and a plethora of optimizations and enhancements across graphics, accessibility, localization, performance, interface, and more. However, the update's headlining feature for many will be the introduction of Shared Worlds, letting players share a cloud-backed save file that can be accessed by any invited players at any point.

The Grounded 0.14.0 content update is already here, and will be the last major update Grounded sees before the colossal 1.0 update adds new areas, enemies, and the remainder of Grounded's story content. Even now, Grounded is already an incredible and beloved survival game, and has what it takes to join the list of the greatest Xbox games when it officially releases next month.

The full changelog for Grounded 0.14.0 "Home Stretch" includes:

New features

Shared Worlds

You can now create a Shared World as well as the Standard Worlds you have been doing since Game Preview launch
- 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.
You can own up to three Shared Worlds at any given time
You can have 50 worlds shared with you at any given time
Any Standard Worlds from before can be converted to a Shared World via the Save / Load menu
Any Shared World you own or have been shared with you can copy as a local Standard World for you to play on your own
Shared Worlds can only be played by hosting it as a Multiplayer game
Only one person can host a Shared World at a time (others will be able to join the current player who is hosting)
Any game progress that happens while anyone is hosting a Shared World will be properly restored regardless of who hosts the world next
Note: This feature is considered beta and could have issues and could require online shared saves to be reset / lost as bugs are ironed out
- If you test this feature out with a save with lots of progress, make sure it is not the only working copy of the world you have on your account
- The shared save service could also go offline at any time during this testing phase to account for issues or updates as needed.

Convert non-Custom games to Custom

You can now convert any non-custom game into a custom game at any time while playing to be able to tune values on any game as you go

Gnat pet

You can now tame and own a bumbling little gnat pet
Pets are also more helpful and less squishy as outlined in tuning changes further below

Rest time-lapse

Upon resting, you will see a quick time-lapse of the yard as the 8 hours pass

BURG.L moves

BURG.L has acquired enough chips to remember he can roll his treads to inspect the Oak lab and fulfill his assistant duties

Microsoft Store save imports

The "Save Game" interface now allows importing Steam saves into the Windows Store version of the game
Note: The old way of importing saves into Steam via placing them in a specific folder in Windows no longer functions or is supported

New crafting content

Rotten meat slurry
- For taming Gnats
Cookery
- Meals are now crafted at the new Cookery building instead of the Oven
- Meals can be created much earlier in the game now
- Unlocked by purchasing the "Cooking 101" Science Shop unlock which is one of the default unlocks you can purchase once unlocking the ASL station
- 2 new meals have been added to the game!

Changes & tuning

Accessibility

Various tweaks and improvements to the Read To Me feature have been made throughout the UI
When navigating dropdown menu options, the index of the selected option will be narrated

Animation

Updated and improved a handful of run / walk / attack third-person animations

Armor & weapon upgrade changes

Quartzite, Leather Scraps and Leather Plates have been removed from the game
Upgrades now require a unique, non-respawning, resource found across the yard
- Armor upgrades require "Style Nuggets:"
- Levels +1 through +5 require "Style Nuggets"
- Levels +6 and +7 require "Cool Style Nuggets"
- Levels +8 and +9 require "Rad Style Nuggets"
- Weapon upgrades require "Tough Nuggets:"
- Levels +1 through +5 requires "Tough Nuggets"
- Levels +6 and +7 require Globs similar to before, but are crafted out of "Cool Tough Nuggets"
- Levels +8 and +9 require Jewels similar to before, but are crafted out of "Rad Tough Nuggets"
Cost of upgrades has been dramatically reduced
- Levels +1 through +5 cost:
- Weapons start at a cost of 2 and increase linearly: 2 → 4 → 6 → 8 → 10
- Armors start at a cost of 1 increase linearly: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5
- Levels +6 and +7 cost:
- Weapons start at a cost of 5: 5 → 10
- Armor starts at a cost of 2: 2 → 4
- Levels +8 and +9 cost:
- Weapons start at a cost of 5: 5 → 10
- Armor starts at a cost of 2: 2 → 4
Tough Nuggets can be found by harvesting Stones of Toughness
Style Nuggets can be found by harvesting Rocks of Style
Style and Tough Nuggets can also be found in lab chests and laying in nooks and crannies around the yard
At certain points in the game you'll unlock crafting recipes to create Style and Tough Nuggets, transitioning the resources from finite to infinite
- Note: Rad Nuggets will not be able to be crafted until 1.0 but a finite amount of them have been placed throughout the yard

Art

Improved player shadows while playing in first person view

Audio

Assistant Manager boss has new music
Volume and distance attenuations of creature sounds adjusted to better inform the player about what's nearby
Unique ambient sounds added to help diversify soundscape
Improvements to overall mix and clarity

Building

Dead players will no longer bounce indefinitely on vertical bounce webs until they respawn.
You can now exit Turrets using the Interact button (E on Keyboard default, X on Controller default)

Building placement

Floors now support cells and walls underneath themselves
Floors require only 2 points of contact with the ground rather than 3
Sap Catchers can no longer be attached to Turrets

Combat

Final encounter in the Haze lab has been tuned:
- Default number of enemies reduced
- Additional enemies are added based on difficulty level
- Additional / harder enemies are added based on player count
Bows now do bonus damage when fully charging a shot as opposed to snapshotting
Spicy Coaltana can now trigger Burr Traps when thrown
Swinging the Spicy Coaltana has upgrade visuals
The "Open Crafting Menu" hotkey has been set back to `C` for keyboard. "Customize" building hotkey changed from `C` to `G` for keyboard

Crafting

Crow feather arrows awarded per craft increased from 2 to 5
Glue Factory name changed to Glue Masher
Glue Masher has updated art

Creatures

Hostile bugs tether more appropriately, including those pesky mosquitos
Scarab HP has been halved
Scarab peripheral vision cone has been reduced (it's easier to sneak up on them)
Added new BURG.L quests for killing the following bugs: Black Ants, Antlions, Black Ox Beetles, Ladybirds, Dust Mites, Rolypolys, Termites, Tadpoles, Water Boatmen, Water Fleas, and Diving Bell Spiders
Ladybird Larva now drop up to 5 spikes each
Weevils will hoard less around dropped mushrooms

Factional reactivity, MIX.R, & Waft Emitter

The amount of destruction that can be done to larger bases has been lowered
Each faction now has a different reputation value requirement before it becomes upset at the player
Players will no longer be attacked by lots of larger creatures at the same time
Larva have been added to Factional Reactivity and the Waft Emitter
Buildings destroyed by defense event creatures now drop a small amount of the resources it took to build it
Base attack difficulty will slowly ramp up over the course of a playthrough instead of being able to instantly go from easy to extremely hard over a short period of time
Base attacks no longer trigger while in a lab or underground
The Waft Emitter will no longer work in the Haze while the haze is still active
Improved creature spawning locations for base attacks
An Auto-Save will attempt to trigger right before a Payback attack or MIX.R event trigger

Interface

The "Save Game" interface will only show saves from the current playthrough instead of all of your saves
Data page on the SCA.B has been improved
- Items are now recategorized to better fit the story
- Some audio logs and notes are now dated
- Items are now sorted and it's easier to spot logs and items that are missing
The password being typed while joining a multiplayer game is now hidden
Custom Game Settings (and thus the Game Difficulty setting) can be accessed from the Death screen
BURG.L quests can be acquired by double-clicking them
A button to view the Survival Guide has been added to the Death screen
The "Build a Lean-to" survival quest now displays the Building Radial control next to it
A line will show up on your SCA.B Health and Stamina bars to indicate where "100" health or stamina is at
- This is to help show how much growth your health and stamina get from Molar upgrades or status effects

Localization

Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean now use correct fonts for those languages

Movement

You no longer will be occasionally launched sideways after hitting your head while jumping

Pets

Pets will no longer leave the player when they are unhappy
- Pet happiness governs various other things, but will never cause your pet to leave anymore
Pet equipment now gives pets substantial defensive upgrades
- +200% bonus max HP
- Bonus DT based on tier of equipment
- Bonus DR based on tier of equipment
Passive buffs given for having an active pet have been tuned
Pet inventory can now be opened directly from the player inventory screen via a new "Pet" button
Weevil pet gravestone has new art
Pets can no longer drown
Pet Inventories count towards "Nearby Storage" when crafting

Optimization

Save game sizes have been reduced
Reduced memory usage
Fixed small memory leaks

World & resources

The Resource Surveyor switch has been moved from the end of the Hedge Lab to the small radar lab at the early portion of the Hedge
House patio wood panels have been cleaned up and holes have been patched
Cookie Sandwiches now follow the new "big food" structure introduced on hotdogs and apples in 0.13
Thistles should be easier to pick and require less cursor precision
Lab chest loot added to the Hedge, Haze, and Pond labs

Bug fixes

Major fixes

Game no longer incorrectly prevents you from saving by noting "base under attack" when there is no base under attack
Clients can now correctly use ladders that were previously broken when built in some areas
The player cannot unbind critical controls such as "UI - Select" by binding the key to a conflicting control
Multiplayer games that have been active for longer than 90 minutes no longer stop showing up in the Game Finder window or prevent players from joining via invites
Fixed issue with users having trouble hosting or joining multiplayer games after having the game open for long periods of time
The Crow Crossbow no longer occasionally misfires
Termite King should respawn more reliably

Other fixes

Sleeping creatures will no longer attack nearby players immediately after loading a save
The player will now be able to crouch after entering a turret from a ladder
Furniture will no longer collapse when replacing the floor it's built on
Palisade Curved Gates can no longer have structures placed clipping into the tops of them
Flying creatures will no longer become stuck when trying to land while over water
Resource Surveyor will no longer detect rotten foods as sources of fresh food
The player can no longer pick up items through floors
Floors can no longer be built through diagonal walls
Accepting a BURG.L quest will now show one notification instead of two
The player can no longer attach grid buildings to the moving parts of palisade gates
Saved game "Time Saved" will now be displayed correctly when saves are shared across time zones
Chipsleuth quests will no longer complete if the game is loaded after collecting the chip and before turning it in
Droplets do not merge unless they are the same type of liquid
The hauling UI will display correctly after loading a game where the player was hauling
The Defrag tooltip is now translated
Items that fall through the world will now be destroyed, or returned to play if critical
The Rest button will properly activate if the Rest cooldown expires while you have the Rest UI open
Buildings cannot be built on big food harvest nodes
Wall-mounted buildings cannot be built on swinging doors
Cacti should behave more consistently and cause less instant deaths
Mom Genes can no longer trigger underwater
Cookie Sandwich Bits will no longer spawn under the ground when breaking cookies
Apple core chunk locations are properly synced on clients
Knocked-down pupa locations are properly synced on clients
Disable Pet Home equip button when a non-equippable item is selected
Payback attacks can no longer trigger if a boss fight is active
The Pause Menu can no longer be triggered in between level loads by spamming ESC / Start
Achievements no longer unlock after loading a custom or a creative mode game
Relocating an armor dummy and customizing it no longer puts the camera back to the old location
Termite King should respawn more reliably
Aphids no longer stay in large groups doing nothing

Xbox & Microsoft Store

Renaming a save game or playthrough will properly update the names such that they will stay renamed after restarting the game
Resuming the game from being Suspended will bring you back to the Main Menu if you were in a Multiplayer game when you went into Suspend mode

Steam

Fixed issue where playing another game that requires Xbox Live login while logged into Grounded would cause sign in issues
Fixed crash that could occur when signing out of your Xbox Live account in Grounded