Valheim Crossplay Server Hosting

Valheim crossplay lets Steam, Xbox and Game Pass players share one world. On a dedicated server it works — provided the host publishes the port it needs, which is the part that quietly goes wrong. Servers here have crossplay on and all three UDP ports open, from $3.93 a month.

What crossplay actually demands

Less than people expect from the server, and one thing more than most specs provide. A Valheim dedicated server started with crossplay enabled registers itself with the crossplay backend and accepts players from every supported platform, with no separate build and no separate server. There is nothing to install.

What it needs is a third UDP port. A Steam-only Valheim server uses 2456 for the game and 2457 for the server query; crossplay adds 2458. Publish the first two and forget the third and you get the most misleading failure in Valheim hosting: Steam players connect normally, everything looks healthy, and only your Xbox and Game Pass friends fail — which reads like a problem with their game rather than with the server.

This is worth checking with any host. The Flux marketplace entry for Valheim enables crossplay in its configuration but publishes only 2456 and 2457, so this site adds 2458 itself when it deploys your server. That is a correction applied here rather than something every Valheim deployment on Flux gets.

How your group joins

Crossplay servers are not browsed the way Steam ones are, and this trips people up more than the ports do. The community server browser is a Steam-backend list; crossplay players join with a join code or by address instead. Hand out the code rather than telling people to search for the server name, and most of the confusion disappears.

The password rules apply to everyone equally. Valheim requires at least five characters for a public server, and it refuses to start if the password appears inside the server name or the world name — which catches groups who name the server after the password so it is easy to remember.

Crossplay and mods pull in opposite directions

Worth deciding early, because it shapes the whole server. BepInEx plugins are installed per-machine into the game files, which a PC player can do and a console or Game Pass player generally cannot. A modded world is therefore a PC-group world in practice, even with crossplay switched on.

So pick a lane. If half your group is on Xbox, stay close to vanilla and let crossplay do its job. If everyone is on PC and you want overhauls, see modded server hosting instead. Nothing stops you changing your mind later — both are settings on the same server, not different products.

What you get on a Flux plan

• Crossplay enabled by default, with UDP 2456, 2457 and 2458 all published for you.
• Hourly zipped world backups, three days retained, browsable from the panel.
• The world save on a volume replicated across the independent nodes your app runs on.
• Admin, whitelist and ban lists set by SteamID64 from the dashboard.
• A region you choose at deploy from more than 50 countries, changeable later.

Plans are $3.93, $5.31 and $6.91 a month for 4GB, 6GB and 8GB. All three reach Valheim’s ten-player ceiling, because that limit is the game’s and not a hosting tier — what you are choosing between is the memory behind the world.

Frequently asked questions