How to Set Up a Soulmask Dedicated Server

Soulmask casts you as a masked wanderer building a tribe in an open, mysterious land, and it scales from small co-op groups up to genuinely large clan servers — its plans support up to 60 concurrent players, well beyond most survival titles in this class. A dedicated server is effectively required at that scale; client-hosted play doesn't hold up once a tribe grows past a handful of people.

What you'll need

• A Docker-capable Linux VPS.
• 6 GB RAM for a smaller tribe, up to 12 GB for a large 60-player clan server.
• 30–65 GB disk depending on tribe size — Soulmask's world and structure data grow with base sprawl.

Step 1: Install Docker and prep the data directory

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
mkdir -p /opt/soulmask

Step 2: Launch the server

docker run -d --name soulmask --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 8777:8777/udp -p 27015:27015/udp -p 18888:18888/tcp \
  -e SERVER_NAME='My Soulmask Server' \
  -e SERVER_PASSWORD='' \
  -e ADMIN_PASSWORD='changeme12' \
  -e GAME_MODE='pve' \
  -e GAME_WORLD='Level01_Main' \
  -e MAX_PLAYERS='40' \
  -e GAME_PORT='8777' \
  -e QUERY_PORT='27015' \
  -e ECHO_PORT='18888' \
  -v /opt/soulmask:/home/soulmask \
  indifferentbroccoli/soulmask-server-docker:latest

Set GAME_MODE to pve or pvp depending on whether you want tribes able to raid each other — this is a decision worth making before your first player joins, since switching modes mid-server changes the rules for everyone already established. GAME_WORLD should stay set to Level01_Main, the game's current primary map, unless a future update adds alternate world options.

Step 3: Open the ports

Soulmask needs three ports open — one UDP for gameplay, one UDP for server queries, and one TCP "echo" port:

sudo ufw allow 8777/udp
sudo ufw allow 27015/udp
sudo ufw allow 18888/tcp

Sizing your server

• 6 GB RAM / 20 players — a mid-size tribe or a couple of smaller ones sharing a world.
• 8 GB RAM / 40 players — our most-picked tier, comfortable for several active tribes.
• 12 GB RAM / 60 players — a full large-clan server at Soulmask's practical player ceiling.

What's new: Steam Workshop just launched

Soulmask's Steam Workshop went live in December 2025 alongside official "Modkits," so player-made mods are now a real, officially-supported feature rather than a hack. It's genuinely new — the mod library is still building out — so we're covering setup here rather than trying to force a "best mods" list out of an ecosystem that's only a few months old. To use Workshop mods on your dedicated server, subscribe to the mod's ID and add it to your server's startup command as -mod="ModID1,ModID2"; expect a real mod scene worth a dedicated roundup within the next few content cycles as more creators publish through the Modkits.

The Modkits themselves are a full authoring toolset (Soulmask's developers built them specifically so creators could publish directly to Workshop without needing separate tooling), which is a meaningfully lower barrier to entry than some of the other games in this list where modding requires reverse-engineering an unofficial script framework. That's a good sign for how quickly a real mod ecosystem could mature here compared to titles stuck on unofficial tooling indefinitely.

Backing up your world

Everything lives under /opt/soulmask on the host — back that up before server-side updates, especially while Workshop mod compatibility is still shaking out post-launch.

Keeping the server online

--restart unless-stopped handles automatic recovery from a crash or host reboot without manual intervention. docker logs -f soulmask shows the live server console (useful right after changing GAME_MODE or adding a Workshop mod ID, to confirm it started cleanly), and docker stats soulmask shows real RAM/CPU use so you can tell early if a growing tribe roster needs you to move up a tier.

Troubleshooting common issues

• Tribes report rubber-banding or lag as the server fills up: this is usually a RAM ceiling being approached rather than a network issue — check docker stats before assuming it's connection quality.
• Server not visible in the in-game browser: confirm all three ports (8777/udp, 27015/udp, 18888/tcp) are open, not just the gameplay port — the query port specifically is what makes a server discoverable.
• PvE/PvP mode change didn't take effect: GAME_MODE is read at container start, so redeploy (not just restart) the container after changing it, and confirm existing tribes understand the rule change before it goes live.

Choosing PvE or PvP for a large server

At the higher player counts Soulmask supports, the PvE/PvP decision matters more than it would on a small server — a 60-player PvP world means dozens of tribes potentially competing for the same territory and resources, which is a very different administrative load (raid scheduling rules, offline-raid protections, territory claim limits) than a PvE world where tribes mostly coexist. Decide this together with whoever's going to be actively moderating the server, not just whoever's paying for it.

Nxeon's Soulmask server hosting runs this exact container configuration on NVMe VPS instances sized from small tribes up to full 60-player clan servers.