How to set up a The Isle Evrima server

🧭 What you'll have at the end

Your The Isle Evrima server online 24/7, in the game's list under the name you choose, with your rules, your admins and the join queue ready for when it fills up. Everything is done from the panel, in your browser. Follow the steps in this order.

🛒 1. Choose a plan

When you order the The Isle server, you only choose the RAM. With the map loaded and nobody on, it uses between 1 and 1.5 GB, but AI dinosaurs and every player push it up a lot. For a small community, the 6 or 8 GB plan; for 50-100 players, 10 to 16 GB. If you outgrow it, you can upgrade without losing your game.

⚙️ 2. Name, password and players

The Isle doesn't need any token: the server is already set up to appear in the game's list. In the panel, open your server and go to the Startup tab:

Server name: the name shown in the list.
Server password: empty, anyone can join; with a password, only people who know it.
Max players: from 1 to 200. More players need more RAM.

👑 3. Make yourself an admin

In Admins, enter your SteamID64, the 17-digit number starting with 7656. You'll find it in your Steam account details, or in your profile address if you haven't set a custom name. If there are more admins, separate the numbers with commas. Restart the server for it to apply.

🦖 4. Map and rules

Map: Gateway is the default map.
Humans: true lets people play as humans; false, dinosaurs only.
Dynamic weather: true makes the weather change; false keeps it fixed.

⏳ 5. Join queue and RCON

The Join queue is on by default: when the server is full, players wait for their turn instead of being left out. It uses its own port, which the panel has already assigned, so you don't have to do anything.

RCON is the remote console, for managing the server with an RCON tool. It's off by default: to use it, set it to true and enter an RCON password. Its port is assigned too, and you can see it in the panel.

▶️ 6. Start it

Press Start. When the console shows Load map complete and the panel shows it online, the map is loaded and the server is ready. Before that, the warning Steam Dedicated Server API failed to initialize always appears: that's normal, because Evrima doesn't use Steam's list but the game's own.

🎮 7. Connect

Open The Isle and look for your server's name in the game's server list. If you set a password, the game asks for it when you join.

📝 8. More settings in Game.ini

The panel writes its settings to TheIsle/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/Game.ini on every start and leaves the file's other lines as they are. So you can change the rest of the game's options, such as bSpawnAI for the AI dinosaurs, from Files or over SFTP, and they won't be lost. What's in the panel is changed in the panel: if you edit it in the file, the next start sets it back to what's on Startup. Before editing files, make a copy in Backups (backup guide).

🔄 Updates

Update on startup is on by default: the server updates itself on every start, because all players need the same version as the server. If nobody can join after a patch, restart it.

🚨 If something goes wrong

“DATA ACQUISITION FAILED” when joining: the game can't reach the join queue. To test, set Join queue to false, restart and join again; if that works, open a ticket and we'll look into it.
You're not an admin: check the SteamID64 has all 17 digits and that you restarted.
You can't find it in the list: wait for Load map complete and search for the exact name.
It's short on memory with lots of players: upgrade your plan, which you can do without losing your game.

If you'd rather receive it ready to go, Assisted setup is an optional one-off paid service in which a technician leaves the server ready with the admins, map and settings you ask for. If you have questions, open a ticket on our Discord. And if you don't have a server yet, here are the The Isle hosting plans.