How to Change the Map on a 7 Days to Die Server

Context

7 Days to Die offers three ways to play the map on your server. Navezgane, the map hand-crafted by the developers. The Pregen maps, random worlds already generated and shipped with the game. And RWG, a random world generated by the server itself from a seed and a size.

Everything is set in serverconfig.xml, with four properties. This guide shows you how to change the map from the Winheberg game panel without losing the current game.

Requirements

An active 7 Days to Die server on the Winheberg game panel
Access to the Console, Files and Backups tabs of the server on panel.winheberg.com
A few minutes ahead of you, an RWG world is generated on first start

1. Back up the current game

Changing the map starts the server on a new save. The old one stays on disk, but a full backup keeps you safe from any bad surprise.

Open the Backups tab and click Create backup.

Backups tab of the Winheberg panel with the Create backup button circled in red

2. Stop the server

The configuration file is read at startup. Always edit it with the server stopped, otherwise your changes will be overwritten or ignored. In the Console tab, click Stop and wait for the Offline state.

Console tab of the Winheberg panel with the Start and Stop buttons circled in red

3. Open serverconfig.xml

In the Files tab, click serverconfig.xml at the server root to open it in the editor.

Files tab of the Winheberg panel with the serverconfig.xml file circled in red at the server root

4. Choose the map

Scroll down to the World section, around line 58. The GameWorld, WorldGenSeed, WorldGenSize and GameName properties follow each other on four lines.

Winheberg panel editor on serverconfig.xml with the GameWorld, WorldGenSeed, WorldGenSize and GameName lines circled in red

Change the value of GameWorld to the map you want.

Possible values for GameWorld

Value	Resulting map	Generated at startup
`Navezgane`	Official hand-crafted map	No
`Pregen06k01` or `Pregen06k02`	Pre-generated random world, 6 km	No
`Pregen08k01` or `Pregen08k02`	Pre-generated random world, 8 km	No
`RWG`	Random world generated by your server	Yes

<property name="GameWorld" value="Pregen08k01"/>

Also change GameName. It is the name of the save folder, a different name guarantees a fresh game and leaves the old one untouched. Only letters, digits, spaces, dashes, dots and underscores are accepted.

<property name="GameName" value="Season2"/>

5. Set up a random world

This step only applies to the RWG value. For Navezgane and the Pregen maps, skip to step 6, the two properties below are ignored.

WorldGenSeed is the seed. The same text with the same size always produces the same world, handy to share a map between servers or to find it again later
WorldGenSize is the width of the world in metres. The officially supported sizes are 6144, 8192 and 10240

<property name="GameWorld"    value="RWG"/>
<property name="WorldGenSeed" value="Winheberg2026"/>
<property name="WorldGenSize" value="6144"/>

The bigger the world, the longer the generation and the more memory the server uses at startup. Start with 6144 or 8192, 10240 needs a comfortable plan.

6. Save and restart

Click Save Content at the top of the editor, go back to the Console tab and click Start.

With Navezgane or a Pregen map, the server is ready within one to two minutes. With RWG, the server first generates the world, then names it from the seed. The console then shows createWorld and World.Load with that name, followed by your GameName.

An RWG world is generated only once. It is stored in .local/share/7DaysToDie/GeneratedWorlds, and the saves of each map in .local/share/7DaysToDie/Saves, one folder per world then one per GameName. Later restarts load the existing world straight away.

Saves folder of the 7 Days to Die server in the Files tab of the Winheberg panel with the Navezgane folder circled in red

Troubleshooting

❌ The server still loads the old game

Check that GameWorld was really changed and that the file was saved with the server stopped
If you went back to a map already played with the same GameName, the server logically resumes the old save, change GameName

❌ The server stops by itself after the change

A misspelled map name blocks startup, values are case sensitive, Pregen08k01 and not pregen08k01
With RWG, a size that is not a multiple of 2048 is rejected
Check that the XML file is still valid, one missing quote is enough to break everything

❌ RWG generation never ends

Allow noticeably more time for 10240 than for 6144, the console must keep printing lines
If the console is frozen and memory is maxed out, reduce WorldGenSize or move to a bigger plan

Best practices

Write down the seed and size you used, that is all you need to regenerate exactly the same world
Give each new game a meaningful GameName, for example Season2-Pregen08k, you will find the saves more easily
Warn your players, a map change resets everyone, inventory and base included
To roll back, restore the previous GameWorld and GameName values, the old save is still there
To permanently delete an old game or regenerate a map, follow How to Reset the World on a 7 Days to Die Server

Need help

If the server refuses to start after the map change, open a ticket with our support from your client area, Technical department, with the server involved in the Related Product field. Our team can review your serverconfig.xml and the startup logs with you. Every property of the file is detailed in How to Configure Your 7 Days to Die Server

Your new map is in place, good luck out there 🧟