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Force Relay Connection
May 23, 2026 at 08:21 PM
Corrected wikilink existence flags
Force Relay Connection is a Multiplayer connectivity toggle in Windrose that routes the player's traffic through the studio's relay network instead of attempting a direct peer-to-peer link. The setting joined the connectivity menu in Hotfix 0.10.0.4.268 on April 30, 2026 as part of the launch-month networking response.
With Force Relay Connection off (the default), Windrose's networking layer tries to establish a direct connection between players whenever it can. Direct routing has lower latency in most cases because traffic does not pass through an intermediate server.
With Force Relay Connection on, every packet is sent through one of Kraken Express's relay servers regardless of whether a direct connection was available. Latency is noticeably higher, but the relay route works in cases where direct routing is blocked.
Aspect | Off (Direct, Default) | On (Force Relay) |
|---|---|---|
Route | Direct peer-to-peer when possible | Always through a Kraken Express relay server |
Latency | Lower in most cases | Higher, due to the extra hop |
Works through blocks | No, fails if the direct route is blocked | Yes, routes around blocks and strict NAT |
Best for | Groups whose direct connection already works | Groups that cannot connect directly |
Force Relay is intended for groups whose internet conditions make direct peer-to-peer routing unworkable. The two most common cases are:
ISP-level blocklists. Some Internet Service Providers blocklist Windrose's direct connection addresses or specific port ranges. When that happens, both the host and the guest can be online without being able to reach each other directly. Force Relay routes around the block.
NAT setups that cannot hole-punch. Carrier-grade NAT, double NAT, restrictive firewalls, and certain mobile-hotspot configurations prevent the standard peer-to-peer hole-punching that Windrose uses. Force Relay bypasses the need for hole-punching at the cost of latency.
Leave it off if your group already connects and plays without dropouts.
Turn it on if a guest cannot join at all, the connection drops on join, or you are on carrier-grade or double NAT.
If it is on but you do not need it, turn it back off to recover the lower direct-route latency.
The toggle is in the connectivity menu accessible from the main menu's settings panel. It can be set per-session and remembers the last value across launches. Toggling it does not require restarting the game; existing connections re-establish through the relay route on the next join.
Relay traffic always traverses an extra hop. Expect ping increases on the order of 20 to 60 ms for most regions, with larger gaps for players outside the relay clusters' geographic footprint. For non-combat exploration and base building, the increase is rarely noticeable. For boss fights, Boarding actions, and any combat that rewards tight reaction windows, the extra latency can shift the feel; groups that do not need the relay are usually better off leaving the toggle off.
Force Relay sits alongside two other connectivity tools that shipped earlier in the launch month. Manual connectivity server selection (added in Hotfix 0.10.0.3.104 on April 19, 2026) lets the player pick which connectivity server handles relay traffic. Direct IP connection (also from 0.10.0.3.104) lets a host advertise a raw IP and port for guests to enter, bypassing the connectivity service entirely. Force Relay is a complement to those tools rather than a replacement; the three together form Windrose's launch-month answer to the connectivity issues that affected the first weeks of Early Access.
Groups that keep hitting connection problems, or that want a world available even when the original host is offline, can sidestep peer-to-peer routing entirely with Dedicated Server Hosting. A dedicated server gives every player a single fixed endpoint to connect to, which removes the hole-punching problem that Force Relay works around. Force Relay remains the simpler fix for a one-off co-op session, while a dedicated server suits a long-running shared world.
