What moves and what stays on each PC
Keen's Dedicated Server FAQ draws the line in three plain statements: character save games are not stored on the dedicated server, character progression is stored only on clients, and world progression is stored on the dedicated server. That makes this job smaller than it sounds. You are moving one thing, the world, and it comes from one PC: yours if you played alone, or the host's if your group played co-op.
Friends do not need to copy anything. Their characters stay on their own PCs and follow them to the server. Keen's FAQ also puts a typical save between 1 MB and 100 MB, with heavily built worlds at the top of that range, and its 1.0 changelog promises smaller files still, so the upload is a short step.
- Moves to the server: the world, meaning its map changes, bases and world progress
- Stays on each PC: each character, with its level, skills and inventory
- Lives only on the server: enshrouded_server.json, with its name, passwords and settings
Find your world on your PC
Quit the game fully first, so the latest save is written. Then look in the folder that matches where your world lives. The 1.0 changelog gives the local folder, and Keen's Save Game Management article gives the Steam Cloud one, where your Steam user ID is the Friend Code shown under Account in Steam's settings.
The world menu in the game tells you which to use. Since 1.0 it has separate tabs for Local and Steam Cloud, so your world appears under one or the other. If you are unsure which file is the right one, sort the menu by last play time, load the world you want, quit, and then sort the folder by date modified: the newest world file is yours.
Before you touch anything, copy the whole folder somewhere safe. That copy is your way back if a step goes wrong.
- Local saves in 1.0: %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\keen games\Enshrouded\default
- Steam Cloud: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\YourSteamUserID\1203620\remote
- Worlds last opened before 1.0: %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\enshrouded
Check which save format you have
Enshrouded 1.0 changed the save format, and Keen's changelog describes the result as smaller files and a simpler folder structure. What you find in the folder tells you which path to follow.
A world that has been played on 1.0 is reported to be a single file ending in .ksd. An Early Access world looks quite different. Keen documents a fixed hexadecimal name for each world in order of creation, 3ad85aea for the first and 3bd85c7d for the second, with an -index file, _info files and ten numbered rolling copies around it.
If you have the Early Access set, the cleanest route is to open that world once in the current game on your PC. Keen's launch FAQ says Early Access saves are converted to the 1.0 format, and its changelog says a save from version 0.8 or earlier is backed up first and then migrated. Update the game before you do this, because hotfixes 1.0.0.2 and 1.0.0.3 both fixed problems in the migration. Afterwards you have a .ksd file to upload, and you can see the converted world for yourself before it reaches the server. The first 1.0 session on an older save resets the skill tree, so everyone spends their points again.
- One .ksd file: go straight to the upload steps below
- 3ad85aea or another hexadecimal name with -index and _info files: open it once in 1.0 first
- No PC that can open it, or you prefer to upload the old set: see the Early Access section below
Move the world, step by step
The server keeps its world in the folder named by saveDirectory in enshrouded_server.json, which Keen sets to ./savegame by default, next to the server executable. On a rented server you reach it through the panel's file manager or SFTP. Start the server once if it has never run, so it creates that folder and a world of its own. Those files are your reference: Keen does not document the 1.0 names, and hosting providers that have inspected their own 1.0 servers report world0.ksd beside a backup folder, so go by what your server actually wrote if it differs.
- Update the game and the server to the same version, since a server only updates when you run its update
- Quit the game on your PC and copy your world's .ksd file to a working folder
- Rename that copy to world0.ksd, or to whatever name your server wrote, and leave the original alone
- Stop the server with its normal Stop command and wait until it has fully shut down
- Move the server's world0.ksd and its backup folder into a separate folder inside savegame, so you can put them back
- Upload your file directly into savegame, not into a subfolder
- Start the server and let it finish loading, then join and check your bases
- Restart it once and join again, to confirm the world comes back after a restart
Uploading an Early Access world directly
You can also hand the old files straight to a 1.0 server. Hosting providers report that if you upload the whole Early Access set to savegame with the current world moved aside, the server converts it on start, writes world0.ksd, and moves the originals into a folder called migrated. Keen's changelog describes the migration for the game as a whole and does not cover this server case separately, so keep your copy until you have played on the converted world.
Copy every file that starts with the world's name, including the -index file and the numbered copies. Keen explains that the -index file records which numbered copy is current under the key latest, so a partial set can load older progress than you expect.
The world number matters here too. Before 1.0, players in a Steam Community thread renamed their world files to the first world's name, 3ad85aea, and report that this worked for some groups and gave others a fresh world. Keen does not document it. Converting on your PC first avoids the question entirely, which is why it is the route we suggest.
Set the server up for your group
A world hosted from inside the game and a dedicated server handle access differently. Keen's changelog says hosts now set one password and promote players individually, while dedicated servers keep user groups with their own passwords, and promoting or demoting is not possible while playing on the server. The password a player types when joining decides their permissions, so choose the group for each person before you share anything.
The server's difficulty is set by gameSettingsPreset in enshrouded_server.json, with the options Default, Relaxed, Hard, Survival and Custom. Check that it matches how you were playing, because the world file is only part of the picture. Stop the server before editing this file and keep it valid JSON. Our Enshrouded server setup guide goes through every setting, and how game server hosting works covers uploading files to a rented server.
To join, select Join in the main menu and enable the option to show dedicated servers in the server filter. Keen says a server missing from that list can be added as a favourite in Steam under View, Game Servers.
If something looks wrong after the move
Almost every failed move ends in one of a few recognisable ways, and because you kept copies, each one is easy to undo. Stop the server before changing anything, and keep players out of a wrong world, since whatever they build there will not carry over.
Do not judge the result by the log alone. Keen's FAQ names a [Session] 'HostOnline' (up)! line as the sign of a started server, and at least one hosting provider reports not seeing it on 1.0. Joining the server and looking at a known base is the real check.
- A fresh Embervale loads: the file name is wrong or it sits in a subfolder, so compare it with what the server wrote and check saveDirectory
- The character arrived but the world did not: this is the same fault, since characters come from the player's PC and never from the upload
- Progress is older than expected: you copied an older file, so check the Steam Cloud tab and folder, and for Early Access files check that the whole set went up
- A player's character is missing: they are on a different PC or Steam account, or it is under the other tab in the character menu
- A character is missing after migration: hotfix 1.0.0.2 says corrupted characters are not migrated for now and a fix is coming, so keep that player's saves
- A base's water is gone: hotfix 1.0.0.3 says water must be added again where the migration corrected a misplaced Flame Altar