As Windrose gains popularity on Steam, players are wondering whether dedicated servers are available and how to host their own multiplayer sessions with friends.
Windrose allows players to indulge in a pirate’s life. Sailing the seas, plundering, swashbuckling, singing shanties. You name the piratey thing, Windrose probably lets you do it.
The game features a vast world, full of unique biomes to explore. You can go straight from your ship to the shore, building, crafting, and surviving wherever you go.
It’s a co-op-focused experience and is all the better for playing with friends. But you might not want to brave the choppy seas of the game’s regular servers as you and your pals embark on an adventure.
GameWatcher looks into everything you need to know about getting into a Windrose dedicated server.
Does Windrose Support Dedicated Servers?
Yes, Windrose does support dedicated servers! That certainly makes the rest of this article easier.
How Dedicated Servers Work
A dedicated server lets you host a world that’s always running. You and your friends can drop in at any time and know that only you can change anything in your personal version of Windrose.
It’s customisable in a way that only affects your game, ensuring you have the experience you want, rather than compromising for the general server experience.
Should You Rent a Windrose Server?
If you and your friends are enjoying Windrose and want to play together for the long term, a dedicated server makes sense. It gives you a persistent version of the game world that isn’t polluted by outside parties, and even if your personal schedules aren’t in sync, you can all drop in and out whenever you want, without relying on the host to be online.
It also means a more reliable, stable performance is possible, which helps Windrose when it comes to hitting the full player count in a server. In Early Access, Windrose supports up to eight players, but the developer recommends four players for performance levels to remain fairly stable, especially with late-game content.
It won’t necessarily fix the issue of eight players straining the game late on, but you’ll certainly have a bit more control over the quality of internet connections involved in your game.
Why Players Want Dedicated Servers
The wild west of playing online with strangers is fraught with issues. There are so many variables that can ruin your day, virtually speaking.
A game like Windrose, where co-op is the focus, greatly benefits from dedicated servers because of the stability and consistency it brings. Better online performance, a sense of ownership over the state of the game world, and flexibility in how you play together are just some of the benefits.
For players who have any kind of online community, a dedicated server can act as a great hub for playing Windrose together, especially when you take into consideration how communities can be global online, so pesky time differences won’t stop you from jumping into a shared world whenever you want.
You can also customise the experience to your own liking, so the game can run in a way that suits everyone (not that there won’t still be arguments about that!).
Server Hosting Options
There are plenty of server hosting options out there. You can download directly from Steam or rent from a provider such as Nitrado, G-Portal, or Host Havoc.
Here are some links to some notable providers that can set you up with a nice Windrose dedicated server.
To set up your dedicated server invovles the following steps.
1:
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Navigate to the “Tools” section in your Steam Library. Click the dropdown filter above your game list and select “Tools.”
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Search for “Windrose Dedicated Server” or browse the list, then install it like any game or tool.
2:
- Steam lets you launch directly, but for setup you’ll need the local files. Right-click “Windrose Dedicated Server” → Manage → Browse Local Files.
3:
Pick how you want to set up your dedicated server:
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Simple — run with defaults for quick start.
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Advanced — edit configs for full customization.
4.
Simple Setup
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StartServerForeground.bat — recommended. The server runs in a separate command line window, and you can see the game logs here. To shut down the server, just close this window.
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WindroseServer.exe — use this if you want the server to run as a background process. To close it, open Task Manager and end the process there.
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A console window will appear if you use StartServerForeground.bat (preferred).
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Once loaded, look for an invite code in the console like f1014dc1.
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If it scrolled away too fast or you didn’t find it, don’t worry! Open your “Windrose Dedicated Server” folder → “R5” folder → find ServerDescription.json here. Open it with any preferred text editor (simple Notepad will do).
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Inside this file, look for the invite code. It will look something like this: f1014dc1.
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Now launch the game itself. Go to “Play” → “Connect to server” → paste the invite code here. You should now be able to see the server and connect to it.
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Send the invite code to your friends, and they should be able to connect to the server as well (“Play” → “Connect to Server” → paste the invite code).
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