Enshrouded

Server and co-op

Co-op

Playing with friends

Up to 16 players

You can host the game yourself (peer-to-peer) or use a dedicated server. There is no crossplay between PC and PlayStation 5 at launch.

Joining a server

Choose Join in the main menu. To see dedicated servers, turn on "Show dedicated server" in the filter on the right. The star marks favorites, which stay at the top of the list.

Inviting

If your friends cannot find your game, invite them from your Steam friends list (right-click, invite to game). A private Steam profile can hide your session.

Permissions

The host sets passwords for the Visitor, Helper, Friend and Admin groups; the password you join with decides what you can do. In 1.0 the host can promote or demote each player at any time, and the role is remembered.

What is saved where

Your character progression is stored on your computer; the world is stored by whoever hosts it. On a dedicated server the world saves every 5 minutes.

Official guide

Setting up a dedicated server

A summary of Keen Games' support articles. The official server runs on Windows only (Linux support is planned for later).

In your Steam library, enable the Tools category: owning Enshrouded gives you the Enshrouded Dedicated Server there. Install it.
Right-click, Properties… → Installed Files → Browse… and run enshrouded_server.exe directly. Keen Games advises against Steam's Launch button.
On first run the server creates enshrouded_server.json. Close the server and edit it in a text editor (name, player slots, group passwords, difficulty).
Open port 15637 (queryPort) on your firewall and router. The game only uses IPv4.
Start the server again. It is ready when the window and log show [Session] 'HostOnline' (up)!.

Field	What it does
name	Name shown in the server list.
slotCount	Number of players, from 1 to 16. Fewer players means less CPU and RAM load.
queryPort	Server port (15637 by default).
userGroups	Groups (Admin, Friend and Guest by default), each with a password, permissions and reservedSlots.
gameSettingsPreset	Difficulty: Default, Relaxed, Hard, Survival or Custom.
saveDirectory / logDirectory	World (./savegame) and log (./logs) folders.

Keen Games' recommended specs for 4 to 6 players: Intel Core i7 at 3.2 GHz (6 cores) or AMD equivalent, 16 GB RAM, an SSD with 30 GB free and 2 Mbit/s upload per player. For 16 players, an i7 at 3.7 GHz with 8 cores. The process uses about 4.4 GB of RAM when idle, plus up to 100 MB per player.

Difficulty

World settings

Preset	Who it is for
Default	Recommended by Keen Games for first-time players.
Relaxed	Fewer enemies, more resources and loot. For players who mostly want to build.
Hard	More, and more aggressive, enemies.
Survival	More aggressive enemies plus extra survival mechanics.
Custom	Tweak each value: health, mana and stamina (25% to 400%), Shroud time (50% to 200%), plant growth (25% to 200%), weapon durability, hunger, enemy amount and more.

New in 1.0: enemy amount has an Automatic option, which scales each encounter to the number of players nearby. If you play solo or in a small group, it is worth trying.

Troubleshooting

"The server is full or unavailable"

What to check, in this order. The first three points come from Keen Games' official support; the others are fixes reported by the community and server hosts.

reservedSlots (official): if a group has reserved slots, the server shows as "full" to players joining with another group's password once the remaining slots are taken. Check each group's reservedSlots and the slotCount.
Did the server really start? (official): without the HostOnline line in the log, nobody can join.
Network (official): port 15637 open, IPv4 only; clearing Steam's download cache and running ipconfig /flushdns also helps. If it does not show in the list, add it in Steam under View → Game Servers with its IP.
Version mismatch (hosts): after a patch, update the server in Steam and restart it; players' games must be up to date too.
Run as administrator (community, Steam, 2024): several players fixed the error by running enshrouded_server.exe as administrator, or by reinstalling the server files after backing up the save.