Does Sons of The Forest Have Dedicated Servers? – Answered

Sons of the Forest is finally available for everyone after years of development. As the sequel to the original game The Forest, it has some big shoes to fill in terms of depth, story, and building. While it still has a way to go, most would argue it’s done so successfully with its early access launch. One thing on many people’s minds is the idea of dedicated servers, though the answer can be difficult to find. Here’s whether Sons of the Forest has dedicated servers.

Is There Dedicated Servers for Sons of the Forest?

For a bit of background, dedicated servers essentially translate to servers that are run by the developer. These are hosted somewhere and are very stable in most cases. Dedicated servers are by far the most popular server type for players and developers themselves, immediately followed by peer-to-peer connections (one person in a group hosts).

Sons of the Forest does technically have dedicated servers as of the recent Update 07. These dedicated servers aren’t your typical dedicated servers though, as you’ll need to set them up before they can be accessed by anyone. There’s a full guide the developers at Endnight Games wrote up which you can read on its official Steam page.

Related: Is Sons of the Forest Good? – Answered

It’s quite a shame there aren’t proper dedicated servers for Sons of the Forest, though the reasoning behind its absence does make sense. While you can have up to eight people on a server at once, dedicated servers are generally reserved for games with much larger server sizes or competitive games. Having dedicated servers would be a major pain to implement, and likely without much gain. Make sure the person who’s hosting the game for everyone else has stable internet, or you may run into trouble.

While you’re at it, be sure to check our guide on how you can get the shovel so you can make a ton of progress.