Barotrauma drops up to 16 players into a submarine in a hostile alien ocean, splitting the crew between captain, mechanic, medic, and whatever else keeps the hull from flooding. The multiplayer campaign is where the game really lives - a persistent crew, a persistent sub, and a save that carries scars from every close call. The problem is the same one every host-based co-op game runs into: that campaign save sits on one player’s machine, and the crew is grounded whenever that player isn’t around.

This guide covers where Barotrauma actually stores your multiplayer save, the file most guides forget about, and how to share it so anyone in the crew can captain the next voyage.

Where Is the Barotrauma Multiplayer Save Located?

If you’re hosting a multiplayer campaign yourself (not through a rented dedicated server), Windows stores it under your local app data. Paste this into File Explorer’s address bar or the Win+R Run box:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Daedalic Entertainment GmbH\Barotrauma\Multiplayer

Daedalic is Barotrauma’s publisher, which is why the folder is filed under their name rather than the developer’s. Inside, you’ll find your campaign save named after whatever you called it when you started.

The Two Files You Actually Need

This is where most manual save-sharing attempts fall apart. A Barotrauma campaign save isn’t a single file - it’s two, and both matter:

  • <save_name>.save - the submarine, the campaign progress, the world state.
  • <save_name>_characterData.xml - each crew member’s character: their skills, their talents, their inventory, their survival stats.

Copy the .save file without its matching _characterData.xml, and whoever loads it either gets crew members reset to defaults or the game refuses to load them properly. Since the two files are named as a pair, keeping them together is easy to overlook and easy to get wrong when you’re manually zipping files into Discord at 11pm before a session.

How to Share a Barotrauma Save Manually

  1. Navigate to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Daedalic Entertainment GmbH\Barotrauma\Multiplayer.
  2. Find your campaign’s <save_name>.save and its matching <save_name>_characterData.xml.
  3. Copy both files together - don’t send one without the other.
  4. Send them to whoever is hosting next (Discord, a shared drive, a USB stick, whatever works).
  5. They drop both files into the same Multiplayer folder on their machine, matching filenames intact.
  6. They launch Barotrauma, load the campaign from the menu, and host.

It works, but it’s entirely manual: you have to remember to do it after every session, remember both files every time, and hope nobody hosts from a save that’s a week stale.

How SaveSync Handles It Automatically

SaveSync syncs your Barotrauma campaign save - both the .save and the _characterData.xml files, together, every time - across every PC in your crew. No manual copying, no forgetting the character data, no stale saves loaded by accident.

How to Set Up SaveSync for Barotrauma

  1. Install SaveSync from Steam on every PC that might host.
  2. Create a sync group and invite your crew via Steam.
  3. Select Barotrauma in SaveSync - it picks up both save files as a pair automatically.
  4. Share it with your crew so everyone is synced to the same campaign.
  5. Play as normal. SaveSync syncs the save (both files) after each session.
  6. Any crewmate can host next, loading the current campaign with everyone’s characters intact.

SaveSync vs. Renting a Dedicated Server

Barotrauma does support real dedicated servers (a separate SteamCMD app, run 24/7 on a rented box), which solves the availability problem differently - the sub is always up, hosted by nobody in particular. That’s the right call for larger, more permanent crews. But it means paying for a server and doing ongoing setup and maintenance for what might be a handful of friends playing a couple nights a week. SaveSync gets you the same “anyone can captain tonight” result without renting anything - the save just lives on everyone’s machine already.

Keep the Crew Together

A dead engineer and a flooded reactor room are supposed to be the danger in Barotrauma - not “the host has work tomorrow.” With SaveSync, your campaign save travels with the crew instead of staying locked to one captain’s PC.

New to the tool? Start with Getting Started with SaveSync. Want to spread hosting duty evenly? See the Barotrauma host rotation guide. And if your captain is offline tonight, read how to continue Barotrauma without the host.