How to join your Sons of the Forest (SOTF) Server

Sons of the Forest servers are a bit different from the vanilla-survival games you might be used to. Endnight ships a separate dedicated server binary on Steam rather than letting the game itself act as host, so there's an extra moving part before anyone can join. On LOW.MS we run that binary for you, but it's worth knowing what's happening under the hood so the first-time setup makes sense. Here's how to get yours up and running.

Order and first boot

Grab a slot from the Sons of the Forest server hosting page. Pick a location close to your group, choose your slot count and any CPU/RAM upgrades you want, and check out. Provisioning is automatic – a couple of minutes after payment you'll get an email with your LOW.MS Control Panel login.

When you sign in you'll land on the service page for your new server. The service is pre-installed and ready to go, so in most cases you just hit Start and the server is live. If you want to change the name, password or other defaults before anyone connects, stop the server, make your changes, then start it again.

What the dedicated server tool actually is

Endnight publishes two separate things on Steam:

• The game (App ID 1326470), which you buy and play.
• The Sons Of The Forest Dedicated Server (App ID 2465200), a free tool under the Steam Tools library that runs the server-side of multiplayer.

On a home PC you'd install the Tool via Steam, launch it, then edit dedicatedserver.cfg. On LOW.MS the tool is already installed on our nodes and wrapped with TCAdmin, so you get a proper control panel around it instead of a console window you have to leave open.

A few practical consequences of that setup:

• Updates are handled for you via Steam Update in the sidebar. When Endnight pushes a new server build, run Steam Update and it'll pull the latest files.
• You don't need a copy of the game on the host – the dedicated server is a separate, free install.
• Hosting via the dedicated server tool (rather than in-game hosting) means your world stays online when you log out, and players see you in the Dedicated tab of the in-game browser.

Configuring your server

Open Configuration Files in the sidebar. You'll see the Sons of the Forest config exposed as a form – no need to hand-edit the file. The settings you'll most likely want to touch on day one:

• Server Name – what shows up in the server browser. Keep it short, make it searchable.
• Password – leave blank for public, or set one to keep the group private.
• Max Players – up to 8, which is the hard cap Endnight set for co-op.
• Game Mode / Difficulty – Peaceful, Normal, Hard, or Hard Survival. Difficulty changes can't be switched mid-save without a restart.
• Save Slot – which world the server loads. Leave it on the default for a fresh start.

Hit save, then restart the server via the top bar. Any change to the config only takes effect on the next boot.

If you need to edit something the form doesn't expose (custom dedicatedserver.cfg entries, advanced save directory tweaks, etc.), File Manager gives you direct access to the server files. For a deeper tour of the config options and save management, see Sons of the Forest server configuration.

Three ways to join your server

Via the in-game server list

• Once in game, click 'Multiplayer' and then 'Join'.
• Switch the 'Source' to DEDICATED.
• You'll now see all dedicated servers running.
• Apply other filters to find your server – e.g. filter for your server name by clicking the three red dots in 'Filter'.

Via the Steam Servers list

You can connect by using your Query IP and Port. Navigate to the control panel and find your server – you'll see your query IP and port, as shown below. In Steam, open View → Game Servers → Favorites, hit Add Server, paste queryip:queryport, and then join from the favourites tab.

Via the 'JOIN' button in the control panel

You can also hit the JOIN button directly on the control panel to launch Steam and connect you to your server – handy when you don't feel like digging through the browser.

One thing to note: Sons of the Forest supports both peer-to-peer lobbies (the game hosting itself) and dedicated servers. The dedicated filter in the browser is the only reliable way to find yours – if you leave Source on P2P you won't see it.

Uploading an existing save

If you've already been playing solo or hosting via P2P and want to bring that world across, you can. The save lives at %LOCALAPPDATA%\SonsOfTheForest\Saves\<SteamID>\Multiplayer\<saveID>\ on the machine you were hosting from. Full walkthrough in uploading your Sons of the Forest save to your server – the short version is: copy that folder up via File Manager, point the server at the right save slot, and boot it.

Single-player saves (SinglePlayer folder) need to be moved into the Multiplayer path before the server will load them – the article covers the exact steps.

First steps once connected

Once everyone's in, a few housekeeping items worth sorting on night one:

• Agree on difficulty. Hard Survival is a different game from Normal – make sure the group's on the same page before you burn a save.
• Enable Cloud Backup from the sidebar if you haven't already. LOW.MS automatically backs your save up off-node, but you can also trigger manual snapshots before anything risky (moving base, fighting Demons, mucking with cave progression).
• Check the Log Viewer if players can't connect. It's the fastest way to see whether the issue is on your end or theirs.
• Set expectations on uptime. The server stays online 24/7 whether you're playing or not, which is the whole point of dedicated hosting – mates in other time zones can keep building while you sleep.

Sons of the Forest doesn't officially support mods or Steam Workshop. Community tools exist but none of them hook into the dedicated server in a way we'd recommend running on shared hardware, so Mod Manager isn't used for this game.

Where to go next

That's the whole loop – order, configure, connect, play. If something's not behaving, Sons of the Forest troubleshooting covers the common stuff (server not showing in the browser, save not loading, players timing out on join). For anything else, our support team is on 24/7 – open a ticket from the control panel and we'll take a look.