If you’ve ever hosted an Enshrouded co-op session, you know how magical it can be to explore the Shroud, build sprawling bases, and take down massive bosses with friends. But every once in a while, you might end up with a player who’s griefing, stealing rare resources, or going AFK for hours while you’re trying to progress through the main story. That’s when you need to know how to kick players in Enshrouded to get your session back on track. I’ve hosted more than 20 co-op sessions over the past few months, ranging from small private lobbies for 3 friends to public servers with 16 slots, so I’ve tested every method for removing unwanted users, no mods or external tools required for most cases.
How to Kick Players in Enshrouded: Default In-Game Steps
The process for removing a player is slightly different depending on if you’re running a peer-to-peer player-hosted session or a dedicated server, but both are straightforward once you know where to look. You can only kick players if you are the session host or have explicit admin permissions on a dedicated server, so if you’re a regular player in someone else’s lobby, you’ll need to reach out to the host first to report disruptive behavior.
For peer-to-peer player-hosted sessions, follow these steps: Hit escape to open the main menu, then select the “Players” tab from the top navigation bar. You’ll see a full list of everyone currently connected to your session, including their ping, platform, and how long they’ve been active. Hover over the name of the player you want to remove, select the “Kick” option from the dropdown menu, then confirm the pop-up prompt. The player will be removed from the session immediately, and their spot will open up for another user to join.
For dedicated servers, you’ll need to log in as an admin first. Hit escape, navigate to the “Server” tab, enter your pre-set admin password, then go to the Players tab to access the kick and ban options. If you want to prevent a disruptive player from rejoining your server entirely, select the “Ban” option instead of Kick, which will add their Steam or console ID to your server’s permanent ban list. You can remove users from the ban list at any time through the same Server tab.
Common Reasons to Remove a Player From Your Enshrouded Session
Kicking someone shouldn’t be your first move, especially if you’re running a public session with new players who might not know standard co-op etiquette. I always send a polite private message first to call out bad behavior, and 9 times out of 10, people apologize and adjust their actions immediately. But if they don’t change after a clear warning, kicking is totally fair. Some of the most valid reasons to remove a player include:
- Griefing behavior: Destroying built bases, dumping shared storage resources, or intentionally leading high-level Shroud enemies to unprepared teammates for a laugh.
- Extended inactivity: A player who goes AFK for 30+ minutes and takes up a limited player slot that could go to an active friend or community member waiting to join.
- Unauthorized resource hoarding: Taking all rare materials like Shroud Core, Ancient Spire parts, or Amber without contributing to group goals, even after repeated requests to share with the team.
- Disruptive communication: Using voice or text chat to harass other players, spam unrelated content, or spoil main story beats for people who haven’t progressed that far yet.
You don’t owe anyone access to the world you spent hours grinding to build and progress in. If someone is making the session less fun for everyone else, you’re well within your rights to remove them without extra explanation.
Troubleshooting: When You Can’t Kick a Player in Enshrouded
Sometimes the kick function doesn’t work as expected, and most of these issues have simple fixes. The most common problem is you don’t have host or admin permissions – if you joined someone else’s session, you won’t see the kick option in your Players tab, no matter how disruptive another user is being. In that case, you can either message the host directly to report the issue, or leave the session and host your own if the host isn’t responsive.
Another common issue is ghost player entries, where a player’s name stays in your player list even after they’ve disconnected from the session improperly, like closing the game without leaving first. You won’t be able to kick these ghost entries, since they’re not actually active in the session. I ran into this bug once where a friend’s account stayed listed for 2 hours after they left, and we couldn’t open their slot for another player. Restarting the session took 2 minutes and fixed it entirely, with no lost base or progress data.
If you’re running a crossplay session, you might also have trouble finding console players in your player list, since their usernames sometimes show up as unlabeled numerical IDs. You can filter the player list by platform to separate PC, Xbox, and PlayStation users, which makes it much easier to locate the specific person you want to remove. If you kick someone by accident, you don’t have to worry about them being locked out permanently – just send them a new invite link, and they’ll be able to rejoin right away.
Pro Tips to Avoid Needing to Kick Players Often
Kicking players is a useful tool, but it’s even better to prevent disruptive behavior before it starts. The easiest way to cut down on kick-worthy incidents is set clear session rules before anyone joins. If you’re posting a public session on forums or Discord servers, list your rules right in the description: no griefing, share rare resources, no AFK longer than 10 minutes without warning, no story spoilers, etc. That way people know exactly what’s expected of them before they request to join.
If you don’t want random people joining your session uninvited, don’t post your invite link in public spaces without a password. I made that mistake once when I first started hosting public sessions, and three griefers joined and destroyed half our base before I could kick them all. Now I always password protect public lobbies, and only share the password with people who message me first and confirm they’ve read and agree to my rules. You can also adjust in-game permission settings to limit what new players can do: set it so new users can’t destroy blocks or access shared chests until you manually promote them to a trusted role, which stops most griefing before it even starts.
If you’re running a larger dedicated server, I also recommend appointing 2-3 trusted regular players as admins who are active in different time zones. That way there’s always someone available to handle disruptive players quickly, even if you’re at work or asleep. You don’t have to carry the entire burden of managing the server on your own, and having multiple admins also cuts down on bias when making decisions about kicking or banning users.
At the end of the day, Enshrouded is meant to be a fun, collaborative experience, and you don’t have to put up with players who ruin that for everyone else. Knowing how to kick players in Enshrouded is a simple but important skill for any host, whether you’re running a small private server for friends or a large public session for the wider community. Don’t feel guilty for removing people who break your rules – your time and effort building your world matters, and you get to decide who gets to share that space with you. Next time you run into a disruptive player, you’ll know exactly what to do to get your session back to being fun for everyone.