The Forest is best played with a group, and it is far better when the world does not depend on one person staying online. A dedicated server keeps your co-op world running around the clock and takes it off your own machine. DedicatedMC runs The Forest on high-clock hardware with a straightforward setup — configure enemies, difficulty and your save slot from the panel, manage multiple worlds, back your save up offsite, and stay online behind enterprise DDoS protection.
The Forest is a co-op survival-horror game — you crash-land on a peninsula, build to stay alive, and deal with what comes out of the trees and the caves at night. It supports up to eight players in a shared world, and like most co-op survival games it is much better on a dedicated server than hosted in-game. Host from your own client and the world is tied to your session: log off and nobody else can play, and your machine carries both the game and the world at once. A dedicated always-on server keeps the world running around the clock, so your group jumps in on their own schedule and the world — buildings, progress and all — is waiting for them.
Because the world lives on the server rather than on one player's PC, everyone continues from the same save every session, and no single person becomes the reason the group cannot play tonight. It also means the difficulty of a raid or a cave dive is decided by the server config you set, not by whose computer happens to be hosting.
The Forest is a relatively light server to run next to larger survival games, so it does not need a lot of hardware to stay smooth for a full group. We still run it on high-clock cores with NVMe storage, and everything — install, updates, config, save management and scheduled backups — is handled from our in-house panel with no command line involved.
The world runs around the clock so players join whenever they want and progress continues whether or not the host is logged in.
The panel installs and updates the server for you — set your config, start it and share the address, no command line and no fuss.
Set enemy presence and aggression, the difficulty mode and building rules, and choose which save slot the world runs on — relaxed builder or tense survival.
Keep multiple worlds side by side, switch save slots freely, and lean on automatic offsite backups plus 24/7 Discord support from the team that runs the platform.
Start with the basics in the server config: set the server name and password, choose your player slot count up to eight, and pick the save slot the world will use. These decide who can join and which world loads, so settle them before you hand the address out — the panel applies your changes on restart.
Then set the tone with the gameplay options. Choose a difficulty mode — Peaceful, Normal or Hard — and adjust how present and aggressive the enemies are, along with whether building damage and enemy raids are enabled. The same map plays completely differently as a relaxed base-building world versus a tense survival-horror one, so pick the values that match the group you have.
For save management, keep multiple worlds in different slots and switch between them when you want a fresh start without losing an old one. Add a scheduled task that backs up your save regularly, take a manual backup before anything risky, and restore an earlier save if a session goes wrong. Bringing a world from another host is just a matter of uploading the save — or letting the team move it for you.
I've loved this service since I left my old host. I never found a decent provider until this one. They have amazing support and have never let me down, even when I've had serious issues. Their plans are very affordable and for the quality you get I don't think anything beats it. I've used their service for around 4 years now and will continue to be a loyal customer.
Service and customer support? Fantastic. I've never had a single issue with my server they haven't been able to help with. The servers are always running well and their customer support is equally as good — quick, helpful, patient and most importantly very transparent. If there are any issues, they will most definitely be there to help you.
Best company hands down. Their support team is friendly, fast, and incredibly helpful — especially through Discord where you can easily open a ticket. They offer features that some competitors charge extra for, and they genuinely help with server issues without any hassle.
Been with DedicatedMC for just under a year now and have yet to have an issue. I've never had problems with downtime or their support — it's by far the best in the space. They reply almost instantly and are always happy to help.
Switching hosts is a pain — so we handle it for you. Share your SFTP details and we'll move everything across at no extra cost.
Join our Discord and open a migration support ticket. Tell us where you're hosted and what you need moved.
Share your current host's SFTP or FTP credentials. We'll zip your files and transfer everything across — worlds, plugins, configs.
We'll notify you once migration is complete. Log in, verify everything looks right, and you're good to go.
The Forest supports co-op for up to eight players in a shared world. You set the slot count in the server config, so you can run a small group of friends or fill all eight seats. Everyone shares the same world, buildings and story progression on the server.
Hosting a co-op game from your own client ties the world to your session — when you log off, nobody else can play, and your machine runs both the game and the world at once. A dedicated always-on server keeps the world running around the clock, so your group can jump in on their own schedule and the world is there whether or not you are.
The dedicated server has its own config where you set the server name, password, player slot count and the save slot the world uses, along with the gameplay options — enemy presence and aggression, the overall difficulty mode (Peaceful, Normal or Hard), and whether things like building damage and enemy raids are on. You can run a relaxed builder-focused world or a tense survival-horror one from the same install by changing these.
The server keeps its world in a save slot. You can pick which slot the server loads, keep multiple worlds side by side, and start a fresh one when you want without losing an old save. Because the world lives on the server rather than one player's PC, everyone continues from the same save every session.
Yes. Automatic offsite backups capture your save on a schedule, so a bad session, a building mistake or a corrupted world does not cost you your progress. You can also take a manual backup from the panel before a risky change and restore an earlier save if you need to roll back.
No. The Forest is a light server to run compared with larger survival games, and our panel handles the install and updates for you. You set your config from the panel, start the server, and share the address — there is no command line to wrestle with, and the whole thing is running in a few minutes.
Yes. Upload your existing save through the file manager, point the server at that save slot and start it. If you would rather we handled the move, the team offers free migration help — open a ticket on Discord and we will bring your world across for you.
