How to Make a Free Unturned Server: Setup, GSLT and Workshop
Make a free Unturned server: self-host U3DS or create one on 1up, pick the map, difficulty and perspective, add a GSLT, invite friends and add Workshop maps.
A free Unturned server keeps your zombie survival world online for your group without anyone paying for the game, since Unturned itself is free to play. On our Unturned server page you can create one at no cost for up to 4 players. This guide covers that route, self-hosting, the GSLT, settings and Workshop maps.
- Unturned is free: the game is free to play on Steam, and so is the Unturned Dedicated Server tool.
- Fastest way: create a free server on 1up and pick the map, difficulty, perspective and PvP in the Game tab. No port forwarding.
- Free plan: 1 server, up to 4 players, 2 GB of RAM and 6 GB of disk. Unturned fits in it, so it runs at ×1 on the Free hourglass: your free time is not used up any faster.
- The GSLT decides how friends join: with a free Steam token, the server is listed and players join by address and port. Without one, they join only with the Server Code the console shows, which changes at every start.
- Workshop: mods and Workshop maps download by File ID; a Workshop map is chosen by name in the Game tab.
1. What you need: self-host or hosting
Unturned is an open-world zombie survival game by Smartly Dressed Games, and its Steam store page lists it as free to play, with online co-op, PvP and Steam Workshop support. Running a server costs nothing in software either. Your three options:
- Host from the game: fine for a quick session, but the world lives on the host's PC.
- Self-host the dedicated server: Smartly Dressed Games' server guide calls the tool U3DS. It runs on Windows and Linux, not macOS, and the PC must stay on while people play.
- A hosted server: the world runs in a data centre, you manage it from a web panel, and nobody's PC has to stay on.
If you already run other free worlds with your friends, our guides to a free Terraria server and a Necesse dedicated server follow the same route.
2. Create a free Unturned server on 1up
- Create an account and press Create server.
- Choose Unturned.
- Pick a region, London or Paris. The wizard measures your ping and suggests the nearest one.
- In the settings step, leave PvP ticked or untick it for PvE. You can change it later in the Game tab, which wins over the wizard. The wizard's mode and difficulty chips do not apply to Unturned; its difficulty is the Game mode setting.
- Optionally tick Protect with a password and paste a Steam GSLT token (optional). Read section 4 first: without a token, nobody can join by address.
- When it is online, the Overview shows the address and the port. Our port is not 27015, so copy both from the panel.
The image installs the latest Unturned build from Steam at every start, so a game update only needs a restart. The Steam news feed shows patch 3.26.3.13 as the latest, on 30 September 2026.
3. Configure it: the Game tab, Commands.dat and Config.txt
A self-hosted server keeps its settings in two files inside Servers/<name>/, as the official guide explains: Server/Commands.dat for the basics (map, password, max players, cheats, PvE) and Config.txt for difficulty presets and advanced rules such as item spawn chance. Servers created before 3.25.8.0 have a Config.json instead, which the game converts to the new text format at startup, per the server configuration page.
On 1up, the Game tab writes Commands.dat for you at every start, so edits to that file are lost; change these fields instead and restart:
| Setting on 1up | Commands.dat line | Values | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Server name | Name | Up to 96 characters; empty uses the server's name | Server name |
| Server password | Password | 4 to 64 characters, not part of the server name; empty for none | None |
| Steam GSLT token | -GSLT launch argument | 32 letters and digits | None |
| Starting map | Map | PEI, Washington, Yukon, Russia, Germany | PEI |
| Workshop map | Map, over the starting map | A Workshop map's name, such as Hawaii | Empty |
| Game mode | Mode | Easy, Normal, Hard | Normal |
| Perspective | Perspective | First person, Third person, First and third person, First person, third person in vehicles | First and third person |
| PvP | PvP or PvE | On or off | On |
| Cheat commands | Cheats | On or off | Off |
| Max players | MaxPlayers | 2 to 24, capped by your plan | 16 (4 on Free) |
The Unturned wiki's command list describes Mode as the server's difficulty and Perspective as the camera rule. Cheat commands lets admins run cheat commands such as give; the official guide notes that Give and other runtime commands need Cheats, so with the switch off the game refuses them.
The same tab holds the server list presentation too: icon, short description and full description. For anything else, open Files and edit server/Servers/1up/Config.txt. Our panel does not overwrite it. Leave its login token and Fake IP options alone: the panel handles the token, and our nodes already give your server a public address and port.
4. The GSLT: listed and joinable by address
A Game Server Login Token logs your server in to Steam, and on Unturned it decides how players get in. The official guide's section on switching to an Internet server says a server without one is a LAN server: players join only through a Steam invite or the Server Code, and it does not appear in the Internet server list. The token "is necessary when hosting an Internet server". The GSLT page adds that it keeps your Server Code the same between sessions.
On 1up that means:
- Without a GSLT: the address and port in the Overview are not enough. Friends join with the Server Code, which changes at every restart (section 5).
- With a GSLT: the server shows in the Internet list and friends join with the address and port.
To create one, sign in at Steam's game server account page, enter Unturned's app ID 304930 and a memo saying which server it is for. Steam's page sets the rules: an account that is not limited, not banned or locked, with a qualifying phone number, and owning the game, which Unturned's free licence covers once it is in your library.
Paste it in Steam GSLT token in the Game tab and restart. Use one token per server.
5. Invite friends
There are three ways in:
- Address and port (with a GSLT): in Unturned, open Connect and type the address and port from the Overview, plus the password if you set one.
- Server Code (without a GSLT): per the Server Codes page, a 17-digit code the server prints in its console right after loading. Copy it from our Console, or use Copy Server Code once you are in the server. Friends paste it in Connect Directly. It goes through Steam's relay and skips the pre-join info screen. It changes at every restart, so send the new one after each start.
- Steam friends list: once you are in the server, invite friends from Steam.
We have not yet joined one of our Unturned servers from a game client, by address or by code; the rules above are the game's own.
Each Unturned server uses two consecutive UDP ports, 27015 and 27016 by default: the first answers server list queries and the second carries game traffic, says the port forwarding page. Our panel gives every server two consecutive public ports for the same reason.
To give yourself admin rights, type admin <your name> in our Console while you are in the game. Admins can then run commands from the chat with / or @, per the official guide.
6. Mods and Workshop maps
Unturned servers download Workshop content themselves. In the official guide, you add each item's File ID (the number after ?id= in its Workshop URL) to WorkshopDownloadConfig.json, and at startup the server installs and updates those mods and their dependencies. Players download them automatically when they connect. Curated maps such as Arid, Hawaii or Kuwait come only from the Workshop.
To play a Workshop map on 1up, for example Hawaii (File ID 1753134636 in the guide's table):
- Open Files and edit
server/Servers/1up/WorkshopDownloadConfig.json. - Add the ID to
File_IDs, separated by commas from any others. - In the Game tab, type the map's name in Workshop map:
Hawaii. It replaces the Starting map; leave it empty to go back. - Restart and watch the Console for the download.
Workshop items take disk space, and the Free plan has 6 GB. Plugin frameworks such as Rocket or OpenMod are not part of our image.
7. Limits of a free Unturned server
Free is enough for a small group. These are the limits, with prices from our pricing page:
- More than 4 players: Casual (€3/month) allows 6, Starter (€5/month) 10 and Pro (€10/month) 30, though Unturned on 1up goes up to 24.
- Backups: Free has none. Unturned has no autosave of its own, so type
savein the Console before you log off; a stop from the panel saves the world before it shuts down. Casual includes 1 backup and Starter 3. - Online time: Free play time is limited; a paid plan keeps the server online 24/7, from Casual.
Tested on Unturned 3.26.3.13, 2026-10-20: panel settings and files checked against our image on 1up v1.9.2; no game client has joined it on our cluster yet.
Change log
- 2026-10-26: current Starter and Pro prices and slots (€5/10, €10/30).
- 2026-10-20: Unturned is no longer in beta; Free has 6 GB of disk and runs Unturned at ×1 on the hourglass; Casual costs €3; the Game tab's list presentation fields.
- 2026-10-08: panel names updated: the Game and Server tabs replace the old Settings tab.
- 2026-10-06: PvP, Cheat commands and Workshop map are now in Settings; the GSLT section says that without a token players join only by Server Code.
- 2026-10-05: first version, after patch 3.26.3.13.