How to set up an Enshrouded server for PS5

Your Enshrouded server for PlayStation 5 is installed and waiting for you. Here's how to start it, get your friends in from their PS5, and keep your world safe.

What you get after ordering

Your server is installed and stopped, ready for its first start. Its join password and admin password are made for you at setup, so you can press Start straight away.

Who can join

Your server is for Enshrouded on PlayStation 5. Enshrouded 1.0 has no crossplay, so friends on PS5 can join it and friends playing on PC can't. A PC group needs a PC (Steam) server instead.

Everyone who joins from a PS5 needs a PlayStation Plus membership. Sony asks for it to play online, and the lowest tier, PlayStation Plus Essential, is enough. Without it the game says you don't have permission to use online features.

PS5 servers run with a host credential that Keen Games, the makers of Enshrouded, gives to approved hosts. We have one, so there is nothing for you to set up.

Start the server

Press Start, then open the Console. Enshrouded's own log is long and technical, so the console hides it and shows a short list of plain-English lines instead:

The first start takes a little longer while the server sets itself up. After that it's usually online within a few seconds.

Join your server

1. On your PS5, start Enshrouded and choose Play, then Join Game.
2. Search for your server's name, or join with your server's address: the IP and port shown on your dashboard. Both work. You set the name in the Startup tab under Server Name.
3. Pick your server and type the password for the role you want: the join password for friends, the admin password for yourself.

If a friend can't get in, open the Players tab and press Friend can't join?. It checks your server for the usual causes, then walks through what to try on their PS5: update the game (highlight Enshrouded on the home screen, press the Options button and choose Check for Update), check the password, and check they have PlayStation Plus.

Passwords and roles

Enshrouded lets people in by password, and the password someone types decides what they can do on your server. Your server has four roles, set in the Startup tab:

The join password and admin password are made for you. Guest and Visitor are off until you switch them on in the Players tab's Roles tab, which shows every role with its password and what it can do. Give every role its own password: Enshrouded won't start if two roles share one, and the Console says which roles to change.

Your files

To keep the PS5 sign-in safe, a PS5 server has no SFTP access. In the Files tab you can change your world (the savegame folder), enshrouded_server.json and the logs folder. The game's own files are looked after for you, and the file manager won't change them.

Player cap

Your plan sets how many players can be on the server at once: 4, 8 or 16, the most Enshrouded allows. When your server fills up, your dashboard shows a note naming the plan that fits more. To fit more friends, move to a bigger plan, then restart the server so it picks up the new cap.

Saving, stopping and restarting

Enshrouded saves your world about every 30 seconds while players are on. When you press Stop or Restart, the server saves the world first, so nothing is lost:

[PYW] Stopping: saving the world first. then [PYW] Server stopped.

Start a new world

For a new playthrough, Stop the server and press Start a new world at the bottom of the World Import tab. The current world is backed up and kept in a dated folder in savegame, and the server makes a brand-new world when it next starts.

Backups

Before a big change, make a backup from the Backups tab. A backup holds your whole server, world included, and you can restore it with one click if something goes wrong.

When Enshrouded releases an update, your server also takes a backup named Before update with the new build number, before its next start installs the update. It only does this when one of your backup slots is free, so it never replaces a backup you made yourself.

Change the difficulty

Your world starts on the Default difficulty. Enshrouded also has Relaxed (fewer enemies, more resources), Hard (more enemies, more aggressive), Survival (adds survival mechanics on top) and Custom.

1. Stop the server.
2. Open the Server Settings tab and pick the preset, then save.
3. Start the server. The console line Game settings: the ... preset. shows the new setting.