An Enshrouded dedicated server is configured by one file, enshrouded_server.json. On your Connect server the values in it live on the Server Settings tab, and every change takes effect on the next restart.
The settings
| Setting | What it does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Server name | The name players search for in the in-game browser | Keep it distinctive; players paste it |
| Player slots | How many can be in the world at once | Up to your plan's cap — 8 on Ember, the full 16 on Flame and Inferno. Sixteen is the game's own limit |
| Game settings preset | The world's difficulty bundle | Default, Relaxed, Hard, Survival or Custom |
| Voice chat | In-game voice on or off, and its mode | Proximity or Global |
| Text chat | In-game text chat on or off | |
| Roles | The user groups: each one's name, password and permissions | Admin and Friend are created for you. See Roles and passwords |
Each role carries five permissions: kick and ban, access other players' inventories, edit the base, extend the base, and a number of reserved slots.
Applying a change
- Edit the value on the Server Settings tab and save.
- Restart the server from the Overview tab.
- Wait for
[Session] 'HostOnline' (up)!in the console before telling players to search.
The server reads the file at start. A change saved while the server is running is not live until that restart — the server keeps announcing the old name and accepting the old passwords until then.
Updates
Your server checks Steam for the current game build on every restart. Players update through Steam automatically; a server whose build differs from the players' stops being joinable, with no error on their side. Keen's changelogs say which patches need a server update — most do — so after a game patch, restart. Your settings survive the update: they live in the file, and the file is yours.
Enshrouded 1.0 lands on Steam on 15 October 2026 (Keen). Plan a restart that day.
Where the settings are not
- Ports. Your server's two UDP ports (game and query) are assigned at checkout and shown on the Overview tab. They are managed for you and never need forwarding; players find the server by searching its name in the in-game browser and entering their role's password.
- The world. The world itself is a folder,
savegame, on the Files tab. Settings do not touch it. To bring a world in, see Upload your world. - Characters. Keen stores each player's progress on that player's own machine. Nothing on the server holds or resets a character.
- Whitelist. Keen documents none. Access is by role password: share the Friend password only with the people you want in, and use the Admin role's kick and ban for anyone who should leave.
Things you cannot change
- Player cap. Sixteen is the game's limit, and your plan sets the ceiling within it (8 on Ember, 16 on Flame and Inferno). Player slots goes down from there, never up.
- The file's layout. The tab and the file are the same thing: saving the tab writes
enshrouded_server.json, and the server reads it at start. You can edit the file on the Files tab too, but the tab is the safer place — a stray comma in hand-edited JSON can stop the server starting.
Restarts and saving
Keen's server autosaves the world on its own every 10 minutes (measured on the current build; Keen's older material said five). Stopping does not write an extra save, so a restart can cost up to 10 minutes of play — take a backup first if that matters. The Backups tab is separate from the game's own saving — see Backups and saves — and taking a manual backup before a settings experiment costs nothing.
Related
- Nobody can find the server after a change: Players can't join
- First-run walkthrough: Getting started