Multiplayer and Servers

Co-op for up to ten, crossplay with 1.0, dedicated servers, how world and character files split, and raids.

Valheim is built to be played with friends, and most of its hardest fights are easier and more fun with a crew. Up to ten players share a server, the map and exploration can be pooled, and the work of a base, sailing run, or boss fight splits cleanly across people. Understanding how worlds, characters, and servers fit together is the part new groups get wrong, usually by losing track of which file holds what.

Playing together

Co-op supports up to ten players on a shared server. You can host a local peer session straight from the game, which is the quickest way to play with a friend, or run a dedicated server for a persistent world that stays up whether or not the host is online. Self-hosting or a paid host both work; the trade is convenience against a world that is always available.

Crossplay is rolling out with the 1.0 release across PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5, and Switch 2, so a group no longer has to be on the same platform to play together.

World files and character files

The single most important thing to understand: world and character are separate files. Your character is yours and carries its items between worlds. That enables item transfer, and it is also the basis of the much-debated “world hopping,” where players visit a second world to mine extra ore and bring it back. Whatever you think of that, the mechanic to internalize is that a character is portable and a world is not. Back up both, and know which one holds your base and which one holds your gear.

On a group server, agree up front on whether characters can carry gear in from other worlds. It is the cleanest way to avoid the world-hopping argument later, and it is a server-culture decision, not a setting.

Server settings

The 1.0-era and current settings let you tune the game to a group’s taste. Options include combat difficulty, no-build and no-map modes, portal rules such as allowing metals through portals, passive mobs, and more. These are how a group bends the default experience: a casual crew might allow metal portals to skip the haul, while a purist server leaves it off to keep sailing meaningful. Decide these before a world gets serious, since changing them mid-run changes the game underneath everyone.

Raids and events

Periodically the world attacks you. These raids, or events, carry names like “a foul smell from the swamp” or “the forest is moving,” and they are triggered by your progression: clear a boss or reach a new tier and the matching event becomes possible. Waves of enemies assault your position, which is exactly why base defenses exist. Earth walls raised with the Hoe, moats, and stake walls are built largely for these moments, so a shared base needs real defenses before the group is deep enough to trigger the worst of them. See survival for the exposure rules that still apply during a fight at home.