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Valheim is a beautiful Norse-inspired game where you can get lost for hours in the grass of a meadows biome or the dark trees of a swamp biome. While Valheim’s solo experience can be challenging, and thrilling, it’s much more enjoyable when experiencing Valheim with friends.

Not only can you play cooperatively with another friend, but you can have up to nine other friends join you for up to ten players in a world.

How To Find A Friend’s Game On Valheim?

When you and your friend are ready to tackle Iron Gate’s Viking-themed survival game, then you can flip a coin to see who hosts the server with local hosting. Although, you will want to prioritize the person with the strongest internet connection hosting the local server.


Credit: Iron Gate Studio

After your friend starts their game, and you decide to go the local hosting route, you can join them through the menu. After selecting start on your character, there is a tab at the top of the screen called “Join Game.”

From there, you can select your friend’s locally hosted server.

If your friend hasn’t set up their locally hosted server on Valheim yet, they can do so by creating a world with a random seed. It’s also possible to create a custom seed. However, if your friend wants to get into the game faster, or just wants to have a randomized experience, it’s best to go with a random seed.

After selecting “Start Server,” you can select a server password. Once your friend creates the server, you can find it simply by clicking the “Join Game” tab at the top.

That said, because Valheim is a very popular game that’s still in early access, you can see thousands of individual servers when you go to select one.

It might be difficult to manually search for your friend’s dedicated server on Valheim. Fortunately, there are a couple of different ways to connect to your friend’s dedicated server.

  • You can join your friend’s dedicated Valheim server using the IP feature.
  • Join the game directly through Steam’s friend’s list.
  • Add the server as a favorite on Steam.

With all the different ways to join a dedicated Valheim server, what should you do if your friend’s server is not showing up?  

How Do I Connect To My Friend’s Dedicated Server On Valheim?


Credit: Iron Gate Studio

Why Is My Friend’s Server Not Showing Up On Valheim?

Here are some troubleshooting tips if your friend’s dedicated server is not showing up on Valheim.

1. Updating a dedicated server

If a new patch was released for Valheim, like the Hearth and Home update, then you will have to update your game. If you don’t update your Valheim game, then the server could be incompatible.  

2. Finding Valheim Server IP

Make sure that your friend has the correct IP address that they’re sharing with you. If they cannot find the IP address, they can do so by typing “ipconfig” into their Window’s command prompt.

3. Fixing General Valheim Server Problems

There are some general troubleshooting your friend can do on their end to ensure everything is working on their end. Also make sure they’ve correctly set up their forwarding ports.

4. Checking internet connection

Of course, you can’t host a dedicated server if your internet is not online. Have your friend check to make sure their internet is stable and there are no outages in their area.

5. Temporarily disable your firewall and reboot your router

You and your friend can both try temporarily disabling your firewall. When you go to disable your firewall, you’ll want to reboot your router. If you’re not comfortable with temporarily disabling the firewall, the server host has to make sure both the computer and router allow forwards through ports 2456, 2458, and 2457.

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Source: Reddit

6. Your friend power cycles their router

If port forwarding is not working, you could have your friend try power cycling their router. If you’ve tried everything again, and it’s still not working, you should have a provider host the dedicated server for you.

There are plenty of benefits of having a provider host a dedicated server such as saving you and your friend precious memory and processing power. You won’t have to worry about editing files, you’ll get to enjoy hands-free server management, and it takes away the headache of trying to set up a dedicated server for Valheim.

If you plan on getting the Viking experience with even more friends, or your friend has the means to set up a server with more technical means, then using a dedicated server to play Valheim might be the right choice for you, either set by yourself (if you’re technical) or by a Valheim hosting service provider. While the former is a long and tedious process, the latter can be as simple as creating a signing up to a hosting provider and choosing a dedicated server in five minutes.

Should You Create A Dedicated Server For Valheim?

Setting up a dedicated server for Valheim isn’t the easiest process, but it is worth it if you have the hardware to do so. There are a number of steps that include opening a forward port, editing files, and backing up any changes you make in case something goes wrong.

You will also want to ensure you have the minimum hardware requirements for hosting a dedicated Valheim server. Here are the server requirements according to the official Wiki of Valheim:


Credit: Official Valheim Wiki

What isn’t mentioned are the network requirements for hosting a dedicated server on Valheim? The minimum network requirements are 100Mbps. However, it’s recommended to have at least 1Gbps. As far as a CPU, it’s now recommended to have an i7 instead of an i5. The recommended ram is 8GB.

While it is recommended to have a separate PC to run a Valheim dedicated server, it isn’t required. It’s the network requirements and port forwarding that can be a little tricky.

It’s because of how complicated the process is that you should consider having a Valheim service provider maintain a dedicated server for Valheim for you.

Having a service provider take care of a Valheim dedicated server for you ensures the lights are always on even if you’re not logging in with your other friends at the same time.  

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