Your players join The Forest server with its Server Address, shown on the server's Overview page in the panel. The Forest is a first-person survival horror game set on a forest peninsula after a plane crash, and a hosted dedicated server keeps your shared world running so friends can join and play together at any time without the host being online.
Join in a few steps
- Open your server in the panel. If the status badge says Offline, click Start and wait until it says Online. See How to start, stop, restart and force-stop your server.
- On the Overview page, click the copy icon next to Server Address. It looks like
address:port.
- Open the Steam client on your PC (The Forest is joined through Steam's server list, not through an in-game server browser).
- In Steam, click View, then Servers.
- Open the Favorites tab and click Add a Server.
- Enter the address part of the Server Address (before the colon), a colon and the server's query port, then confirm. Look on the Ports & Network page for the port described as the query port. If no port is described that way, ask support which one it is.
- Click Refresh. Your server should appear in the list.
- Double-click the server to join. Enter the Server Password if you set one.
- If the game asks for the admin password when you join and you are the admin, enter it there.
Ports
Steam's Add a Server needs the server's query port, which is shown on the Ports & Network page, not the port in the Server Address on the Overview page. The other ports the server uses are internal and players never type them.
Game version
The client and server game versions must match: after a game update, players whose Steam has not updated are refused until they restart Steam. With Auto-Update on, the server checks Steam for a new game build every time it starts. Turn Auto-Update off if you want to stay on your current version, for example when an update stops your players from connecting.
If you cannot join
- The server must be Online. Check the badge at the top of the page.
- Copy the address again from the panel. A missing or mistyped port is the most common cause.
- Make sure every player runs a compatible game version.
- Check the password, if you set one. See How to set up The Forest server.
- More checks: How to join your server and The Forest server problems and fixes.
