How to Create Your Own Palworld Server

Palworld is the first major successful video game of 2024. The addictive combination of collecting Pokémon-like monsters and open-world survival gameplay has attracted millions of players on PC and Xbox, but one of the best features of the game is its multiplayer mode, allowing players to log into public servers with friends and strangers. However, if you are looking for a more private Palworld experience, you can also create your own dedicated Palworld server on PC.

Palworld’s dedicated servers allow you to invite your friends to a private world where your progress will be saved as long as the server remains active. If you’ve ever played Minecraft on a personal server, it’s essentially the same idea. Dedicated servers even give you a little more control over the gameplay since you don’t have to worry about random players joining and interfering with your base building, and allow you to adjust settings or even adjust the difficulty of the game, change the speed at which you level up and much more.

Playing on your own dedicated Palword server is fun, but it does require some work to set up. To help you with this process, we have put together this guide on how to create, host and manage a Palworld server on Windows.

What you need to create and host a Palworld dedicated server

Creating a dedicated Palworld server is only possible on the PC version of Steam (either Windows 11/10 64-bit or Linux 64-bit). This feature is not available to Xbox players or PC users playing through GamePass. In this guide, we follow the steps for Windows 11/10.

You can run a dedicated Palworld server on the same computer you play Palworld on. However, it’s even better if you have an additional computer running the server instead, since the server software will use your computer’s resources when it’s active. The server PC should have at least 16 GB of RAM, and ideally 32 GB or higher. It is technically possible to run a Palworld dedicated server with just 8GB of RAM, but we don’t recommend it; Memory usage is high and the server may perform poorly or even crash. A quad-core processor and a fast SSD are also recommended.

Apart from suitable PC hardware, you will also need a stable internet connection with the fastest possible speed. We recommend using an Ethernet connection as a wired internet connection is more reliable and reliable than Wi-Fi. However, if Wi-Fi is your only option, a 5GHz router is ideal.

Download Palworld Private Server Software

First, we need to install the Palworld dedicated server software, which is available as a free download for anyone who owns the game on Steam.

1. Open your Steam library and download the Palworld dedicated server. If you don’t see it, make sure the Tools checkbox is selected in the Library drop-down list. You also need to install and run Palworld at least once for it to appear.

2. After installing the server software, launch it from Steam. In the pop-up window, select “Play on Palworld Dedicated Server” , then click “Play”.

3. A command prompt window will open with the following message: "Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 2394010"

4. You may see a security pop-up if you are using Windows Defender or third-party firewall software. We’ll look into disabling this later, but feel free to grant permissions to the Palworld server now if you can.

5. Close the Command Prompt window and continue to the next section.

Set up a server

If you followed the steps above, all the necessary files are now installed on your computer, and it’s time to launch your Palworld dedicated server. Before we do any of this, we need to find the local IPv4 address of the server PC, which we need for the server to run properly. This is a string of eight numbers, separated by periods, used to identify a specific device on the network (it will look something like this: 00.0.0.000). You can easily find your IPv4 address in Windows Settings by following these steps:

Find your IPv4 address in Windows 11:

1. Go to Start > Settings > Network & Internet.

2. Select a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection.

3. Go to Properties and scroll down to the IPv4 address. Write down the numbers.

Find your IPv4 address in Windows 10:

1. Click the Wi-Fi or Ethernet icon on the taskbar.

2. Select your connection from the list, then click Properties.

3. Scroll down until you see the IPv4 address. Write down the numbers.

Now that we have an IPv4 address, we need to configure your server settings.

1. Right-click on “Palworld Dedicated Server” and select “Manage” > “Browse Local Files” OR open File Explorer and navigate to Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\PalServer.

2. Right-click DefaultPalWorldSettings and select Open With > Notepad.

3. Then go to Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\PalServer\Pal\Saved\Config\WindowsServer.

4. Right-click “PalWorldSettings.ini” and select Open With > Notepad. This will be a blank document.

5. Copy and paste the text from DefaultPalWorldSettings, starting with [/Script/Pal.PalGameWorldSettings], into PalWorldSettings.ini.

6. Close both files.

7. Create a backup of the PalWorldSettings.ini file by copying and pasting it into another folder. You can use the backup to restore the default configuration if you run into problems and need to rebuild the server.

Next we need to set a few parameters so that others can find and connect to your Palworld server.

Open PalWorldSettings.ini and press “Ctrl+F” in Notepad to find and change the following settings.

• ‘ServerName=’ (your server name)

• ‘ServerDescription= ‘ (Description of your server. Optional.)

• ‘ServerPassword= ‘ (password used to log into your Palwrodl server)

• ‘AdminPassword= ‘ (password used to access server settings at the administrator level)

• ‘PublicIP= ‘ (IPv4 address of the server that we found in the previous steps)

• ‘Region=’ (region of your server. Optional.)

Make sure that the information you add is in quotation marks for each parameter. For example, “ServerName=My Palworld Server ver.”.

There are other advanced settings you can change in PalWorldSettings.ini, but the above settings are the most important. We’ll look at the custom settings you can change in the next section.

If you are satisfied with the settings, save your changes and close Notepad.

Change your server connection settings

Now that we have configured your Palworld dedicated server name, password and other information, we need to make a few changes to your router’s network so that other players can find it and connect to it.

First, we need to get the server through Windows Defender Firewall.

1. Search for “PowerShell” in the Windows Start menu.

2. Right-click Windows Powershell and select Run as Administrator.

3. Copy and paste each of these commands into the Powershell window, pressing Enter after each to complete the action:

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Palworld Server" -Direction Inbound -LocalPort 27015,27016,25575 -Protocol TCP -Action Allow

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Palworld Server" -Direction Outbound -LocalPort 27015,27016,25575 -Protocol TCP -Action Allow

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Palworld Server" -Direction Outbound -LocalPort 8211,27015,27016,25575 -Protocol UDP -Action Allow

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Palworld Server" -Direction Inbound -LocalPort 8211,27015,27016,25575 -Protocol UDP -Action Allow

1. After running the commands, close Powershell.

Next we need to configure port forwarding on your network router for the Palworld server. This process is different for each router, so we can’t give you specific instructions. However, this is possible for all routers, so a quick Google search should point you in the right direction.

Follow the instructions for your router to set up port forwarding on ports 8211 , 27015 , 27016 , 25575 . Select TCP or UDP protocols. This process may also require the server’s local IPv4 address, which we found in the previous section.

By completing these final steps, you have completed the minimal process of setting up your own dedicated Palworld server. However, there are a few additional steps you can take to optimize your server’s performance before you start playing and even change your gameplay with custom settings and mods.

Optimize your Palworld server (optional, but recommended)

While it is entirely possible to play on a dedicated Palworld server using default settings, it is likely that you will experience performance degradation or even crash due to memory leaks and other issues. Luckily, users have found several tweaks to help it perform better. This Reddit thread from the official Palworld Dedicated Server subreddit has several suggested settings changes and .ini file edits that seem to improve performance.

It’s also wise to restart the server regularly to prevent memory leaks that cause crashes. The minimum should be once every 24 hours, but some users suggest rebooting every two hours. Another solution is to use the free Windows RamMap program to clear your server PC’s memory every two hours, combined with a hard reboot every 24 hours. Pocket Pair says they are working on a solution to this problem, but even if the memory leak bug is resolved, restarting once a day is still a smart move since servers eat up your RAM.

These optimization steps are optional and can be done when you create the server, or implemented later if you have problems hosting the server.

Our final optimization tip is to update your Palworld game files and servers on Steam. Pocket Pair Studios regularly patches the game and server software to resolve these issues, so be sure to install all updates on Steam when they are available to keep everything up to date and working properly.

Set up your Palworld server (optional)

One of the benefits of hosting your own Palworld server is customizing the gameplay experience to suit your preferences. You can customize everything: game difficulty, experience rate, length of day and night cycles, and much more – much more, in fact. This is optional, so feel free to skip to the last section if you just want to play around with the default gameplay settings.

To set up your Palworld server, you need to open and edit certain settings in the PalWorldSettings.ini file using Wordpad. Please note that changing your server’s GamePay settings may cause errors or other problems when playing Palworld, so do so at your own risk. Be sure to back up PalWorldSettings.ini before changing anything so you can restore your server settings if something goes wrong.

Here’s just a short list of what you can change:

• Difficulty: Make the game easier or harder.

• ExpRate: Change the amount of experience that players and friends earn while playing.

• PalSpawnNumRate: Change the number of friends spawned in the world.

• DayTimeSpeedRate : Change the length of the day on your server.

• NightTimeSpeedRate: Change the length of the night on your server.

There are dozens of other settings you can customize. For a complete list of Palworld custom settings , see this guide from Datahost.

Be sure to save any changes you make to PalWorldSettings.ini before closing the file. You will also need to restart the server and other players will need to reconnect before the changes take effect in the game.

Launch and connect to the server and play

Once everything is set up and the settings are configured to your liking, it’s finally time to boot up your Palworld dedicated server and start playing.

To start the server:

1. Open your Steam library and launch the Palworld dedicated server.

2. In the pop-up window, select “Play on Palworld Dedicated Server”, then select “Play”.

3. A command prompt window will open, just like before when we first set up the server. This means the server is online and running, so do not close the window unless you are shutting down the server.

To join the server:

1. Open Palworld on Steam.

2. When the game starts, select “Join Multiplayer Game.”

3. To join your own server: Enter the server’s IPv4 address in the text box at the bottom of the screen.

4. To join someone else’s server: Enter the server’s IPv4 address in the text box at the bottom of the screen, then add :8211 at the end. (For example: 000.0.0.0:8211)

5. (Optional) If the server has a password, select the Enter Password checkbox next to the text field.

6. Click Connect.

If everything works, the game will be uploaded to the dedicated server.

Palworld server administrator commands:

The last thing to pay attention to is the server admin commands. When playing on your own Palworld server, you can use console commands to perform certain server functions, such as seeing who is still active on the server, checking server information, or even kicking and banning players.

To do this, you need to give yourself administrator rights:

1. In the game, press Enter to open the chat window.

2. Type /AdminPassword followed by the admin password we set earlier in PalWorldSettings.ini, then press Enter to get admin status.

You can now enter the following commands (without parentheses) into chat to perform various server admin functions:

• /Broadcast [MessageText] – Sends a server-wide message to all active players.

• /Info – displays information about the server.

• /ShowPlayers – Shows a list of all players active on the server.

• /KickPlayer [PlayerUID or SteamID] – Kicks the target player from the server. They can reunite.

• /BanPlayer [PlayerUID or SteamID] – removes the player from the server and prevents him from reconnecting. Players can only be unbanned by removing their names from the Banlist.txt file in PalServer’s local files.

• /TeleportToPlayer [PlayerUID/SteamID] – Sends you to the target player’s in-game location.

• /TeleportToMe [PlayerUID/SteamID] – Teleports the target player to your game location.

• /Save – saves the current state of the world, player and friend data to the hard drive of the server PC. Use this before shutting down the server.

• /Shutdown [Seconds] [MessageText] – Shuts down the server after a specified number of seconds and displays a message and countdown timer to all connected players.

• /DoExitForcebeing – immediately shuts down the server. Only use this if you have serious problems that require you to shut down the server immediately, as this may result in data loss.

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