Once Human is combining its permanent servers. Servers running the same scenario in the same region are being folded into single, larger servers, which is meant to stop players from being scattered across half-empty worlds while their friends and Hive members sit somewhere else. The first wave lands with the September 16 maintenance, and it touches character data, territories, and tech progress in ways worth knowing about before you log out.
Quick answer: The first permanent server merges begin during the September 16 maintenance. Character level, supplies, tech level, and Hive relationships carry over intact. Task progress resets, and displaced territories are compensated through in-game mail.
Permanent server merge schedule and affected scenarios
Not every scenario merges at once. The first batch covers two scenarios in full plus a regional slice of a third, with the rest handled in later updates because those servers already carry heavy populations.
| Scenario | Servers affected | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| The Way of Winter | All permanent servers | September 16 maintenance |
| Deviation | All permanent servers | September 16 maintenance |
| Manibus | South America, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan | September 16 maintenance |
| Manibus | All remaining regions | A later update |
| Endless Dream | Permanent servers | A later update |
Once a merge begins, the old server is gone for good. You cannot log back into it, browse it, or recover anything left behind, so treat the maintenance window as a hard cutoff rather than a temporary outage.
What carries over to the merged server
The bulk of your character moves across untouched. You are not rebuilding from scratch, and you are not losing your place in the scenario.
- Character level
- Supplies and stored resources
- Tech level and development progress
- Hive relationships
The one clear exception is task progress. Your current tasks are reset to match the challenges and rewards of the server you land on, which puts longtime residents and new arrivals on the same footing rather than leaving two sets of objectives running side by side.
Territories, packed-up bases, and mail compensation
Territories move with you. The system tries to drop each base back at its original coordinates and keep the same neighbors nearby, so in the best case you log in and everything is where you left it.
That is not always possible. When two territories from different servers land on the same plot, when a world hits its territory limit, or when a rule change makes a spot invalid, the base gets packed up instead. Affected players can pick a fresh location, and compensation arrives by in-game mail.
Shared building also gets untangled. Any facility another player placed inside your territory, or that you placed inside someone else’s, is refunded to its owner by mail rather than carried across.
Clear space in your mailbox before the update. Compensation and refunded facilities all arrive as mail, and a full inbox is the easiest way to lose them.
The Way of Winter: Tech point reset and Thermal Tower no-build zone
The Way of Winter has its own set of rules because version 1 and version 2 permanent servers, including W_Winter-Y0001 and W_Winter-Y0002, are being merged together. Tech points and tech levels are wiped as part of that process.
The reset is temporary. Points are returned within three business days of the merge, so a stretch of downgraded progression right after logging in is expected rather than a bug.
Thermal Tower changes
Thermal Tower tech follows the same pattern. It is reset at the merge and unlocked again within three business days. The bigger structural change is that the public Thermal Tower area becomes a no-build zone on the merged server, which means any territory sitting inside that radius can be packed up and will need a new home.
Multiple worlds and online player caps on merged servers
Merging several servers into one produces a much larger population, so each new server is split across multiple worlds. Those worlds are not unlimited. Each carries an online player cap, and game modes and territories have their own per-world limits.
When a world is full, you are asked to switch to another one. The exception is ownership: if your territory sits in that world, you can still enter it even at the cap. That rule protects your base but leaves open questions about crowded world events, where a packed world could keep players out of an invasion they wanted to join.
How to confirm the merge worked
After the maintenance ends, log in normally. You will land on the new merged server, and the old server name will no longer be selectable anywhere in the server list. Your level, supplies, and tech level should read the same as before, while your active tasks will have switched to the new server’s set.
Then check two things. Open the map and confirm your territory is standing where you left it. If it is not, open your mail, where the compensation and any refunded facilities will be waiting along with the option to relocate.
For Way of Winter players, a missing pile of tech points on day one is not a sign that something failed. Give it up to three business days before flagging it, since both the standard tech reset and the Thermal Tower unlock are restored inside that window.
