How to Turn On Keep Inventory on a Hytale Server

Dying in Hytale normally costs you something: part of what you carry drops where you fell, and your gear loses durability. On your own server you decide how harsh that is. There is no switch for it in the panel: the rule lives in your world's own settings file, and turning on keep inventory means adding one short block to it.

What you need before you start

• Your Hytale server in the game panel
• Five minutes and a server you can stop for a moment

Where the setting lives

Every world on a Hytale server has its own folder, and every world folder has its own config.json:

universe/worlds/<world name>/config.json

A new server has a single world, in a folder called default. So on most servers the file you want is:

universe/worlds/default/config.json

Do not confuse it with the config.json in the root folder of the server. That one holds server-wide things like the server name, password and player limit. Death rules are set per world, which also means two worlds on the same server can have different rules.

Step 1: stop the server

Open your server in the panel and press Stop. Wait until it is fully offline.

The server holds the world's settings in memory while it runs. If you edit the file while it is running, your change can be overwritten when the world is saved or the server shuts down.

Step 2: open the world's config.json

1. Go to the Files tab
2. Open universe, then worlds, then the world's folder (default unless you have renamed or added worlds)
3. Click config.json to open it in the editor

It is a long JSON file with settings such as "Seed", "GameMode" and "IsPvpEnabled". Somewhere in the middle you will find this line:

"GameplayConfig": "Default",

Step 3: add the death block

Check first whether the file already has a "Death" section. Some worlds have one, many do not. If it is there, change the values inside it. If it is not, paste this directly below the "GameplayConfig" line:

"Death": {
  "RespawnController": {
    "Type": "HomeOrSpawnPoint"
  },
  "ItemsLossMode": "None",
  "ItemsAmountLossPercentage": 0.0,
  "ItemsDurabilityLossPercentage": 0.0
},

"ItemsLossMode": "None" is the keep inventory part: players keep everything when they die. The two percentages are set to zero so nothing is taken in any other way. RespawnController decides where a player comes back, here at their home or the world spawn.

Mind the comma after the closing }. Every entry in the file is separated from the next by a comma, and a missing or extra comma is the most common reason a world refuses to load after an edit.

Click Save.

Step 4: start the server

Press Start and watch the Console tab while the world loads. Then die once on purpose, somewhere safe, to check it works. Your inventory should still be full when you respawn.

Other death rules you can set

The same block also does the opposite, or anything in between. ItemsLossMode takes three values:

With Configured, ItemsAmountLossPercentage sets how much of the inventory is lost and ItemsDurabilityLossPercentage sets how much durability gear loses. Both are percentages from 0 to 100, written with a decimal point, such as 25.0. A gentle survival server might use 25 and 10, a hardcore one All.

The names and values are case sensitive. none or itemsLossMode will not be recognised.

Troubleshooting

The server will not start after the edit. The file is no longer valid JSON. Open it again and look at the lines around your block: a missing comma after }, a comma after the last entry in the file, or a quote that was not copied. Fix it, save, start again.

Players still lose items. Check that you edited the world players are actually on. With several folders under universe/worlds, each has its own config.json, and each needs its own Death block. Also check that you stopped the server before saving, otherwise the old values may have been written back.

My change disappeared. Almost always the server was running while you edited. Stop it, make the change again, save, then start.

I only see one config.json. You are in the root folder. The world's file is inside universe/worlds/<world name>/.

Frequently asked questions

Does this affect items already dropped? No. It applies to deaths from the moment the server has started with the new setting.

Do I need to restart for every change? Yes. Stop the server, edit, and start it again. The world reads the file when it loads.

Can I set this for one world only? Yes. The setting is per world, so a creative build world can keep inventory while an adventure world keeps the normal penalty.

Is there an in-game command for this? Not one we can point you to with confidence for the current version, so this guide sticks to the config file, which works on every Hytale server.

Can I undo it? Set ItemsLossMode back to Configured or All, or remove the whole Death block, then restart.

Stuck, or the world will not load after the change? Open a ticket from the support page with your server name, and we will look at the file with you. Not running a server yet? See our Hytale server hosting plans.