diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
index 01f8618850..7de8a9de5a 100644
--- a/.gitmodules
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
 [submodule "extern/SQLiteCpp"]
 	path = extern/SQLiteCpp
 	url = https://github.com/etternagame/SQLiteCpp
+[submodule "extern/json"]
+	path = extern/json
+	url = https://github.com/etternagame/json.git
diff --git a/extern/CMakeLists.txt b/extern/CMakeLists.txt
index b7aec06042..4d8b47197e 100644
--- a/extern/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/extern/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ if (NOT SYSTEM_PCRE_FOUND)
   include(CMakeProject-pcre.cmake)
 endif()
 include(CMakeProject-sqlitecpp.cmake)
+include(CMakeProject-modernjson.cmake)
 include(CMakeProject-tomcrypt.cmake)
 include(CMakeProject-tommath.cmake)
 include(CMakeProject-png.cmake)
diff --git a/extern/CMakeProject-modernjson.cmake b/extern/CMakeProject-modernjson.cmake
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..60bda88043
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extern/CMakeProject-modernjson.cmake
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+
+add_subdirectory(json)
+
diff --git a/extern/json b/extern/json
new file mode 160000
index 0000000000..fdecbf6e1e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extern/json
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit fdecbf6e1e9d7aef2a78f660a59a6fc0061ea957
diff --git a/src/CMakeLists.txt b/src/CMakeLists.txt
index dd3aecd704..9ceabf7e1d 100644
--- a/src/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/src/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -333,6 +333,7 @@ list(APPEND SMDATA_LINK_LIB
   "jpeg"
   "sqlite3"
   "SQLiteCpp"
+  "nlohmann_json"
 )
 include(../extern/CMakeProject-mmmagic.cmake)
 
@@ -538,6 +539,7 @@ list(APPEND SM_INCLUDE_DIRS
 if(NOT APPLE)
   list(APPEND SM_INCLUDE_DIRS
     "${SM_EXTERN_DIR}/glew-1.5.8/include"
+    "${SM_EXTERN_DIR}/json/include"
     "${SM_EXTERN_DIR}/jsoncpp/include"
     "${SM_EXTERN_DIR}/zlib"
   )