Version 0.5 - Second Shift (Co-Op Preview)

You're not mining alone anymore. Version 0.5 brings co-op multiplayer to Ore Works - grab up to three friends, share the facility, and keep your own progress entirely to yourself while you do it.

Up to 4 players can now work the same facility at once. The world is shared - the hangout space, base expansions, and your hired crew - but your progression is entirely your own: separate ore/ingot inventory, upgrades, prestige, and weapons for every player. Nobody can spend your ore, and nobody can undo your upgrades. You're contractors sharing a site, not sharing a wallet.

Co-op never touches your single-player save. It goes further than that: you get a separate save for each host you play with.

Play in Abby's facility and that progress lives in Abby's world. Join John's session and you pick up where you left off in his world, with Abby's progress untouched. Host your own and that's a third, separate operation.

The co-op menu now lists every facility you have progress in - whose it is, how long you've worked it, and how many ingots you've banked - so you can see exactly what you're walking into. Hosting resumes your own facility; joining a friend resumes your progress in theirs. CONTINUE SHIFT only appears once your own facility actually has a shift to continue.

Worth knowing before you start: if your friend begins a new shift as host, everyone starts clean in that world. Your progress in every other world is untouched.

Every tool in the game - Hammer, Pickaxe, Gold Pickaxe, Clay Pickaxe, Smelter's Pickaxe, Sledgehammer, and Shockwave Hammer - now has a real first-person model. You'll see actual hands gripping your gear instead of nothing at all, with each tool individually tuned to sit right in the grip. And when you swing, other players in your session actually see you swing - no more standing motionless while ore mysteriously breaks in front of you.

Your hired crew show their gear too - a joining player now sees the host's workers holding the tools their tier has earned, rather than swinging thin air.

The radios scattered around the facility and your Extraction Progress tier badge now update correctly for every connected player - power it on, change the station, or hit a tier milestone, and everyone in the session sees it. Ore nodes crack up properly for everyone as they're worked, instead of looking pristine right up until they shatter.

Hosting a session? A new ADMIN tab shows up in your inventory panel with everything you need to run it - who's connected (with avatars), how long the session has been going, current tier, and a kick button if you need it. Server controls let you sweep every dropped ore/ingot off the floor or force every ore node to respawn, with an activity log tracking what you've done.

Key bindings, readable at last. The bindings screen now shows actual key caps - W, SPACE, MOUSE1 - grouped into Movement, Actions and Interface instead of a single long list of tiny unreadable icons. Controller players get proper button glyphs for their pad. Escape now opens the pause menu, as it always should have.