How to Change Your Valheim Character Name Without Losing Progress

Last verified 12 September 2026 against Iron Gate’s 1.0 material and their 11 September hotfix, plus the live Thunderstore and GitHub listings for every tool named below.

Which method should you use?

Method 1: rename the character save (PC, keeps everything)

Your character lives in a .fch file, separately from any world or server. Renaming it inside that file is the only way to keep skills, stats and progress.

Local saves are at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\characters\. If yours is in Steam Cloud, use Manage Saves on the character selection screen to move it to Local first. You do not need to go digging in Steam Cloud internals.

1. Close Valheim completely.
2. Move the character from Cloud to Local if it is not already Local.
3. Copy the .fch somewhere outside the save folder. This is the step that makes everything else reversible.
4. Open the file in a current character editor and change the name only. Leave skills, inventory and appearance alone: the fewer fields you touch, the less there is to go wrong.
5. Save. The editor has to re-sign the file, which is why a plain hex editor is no longer safe.
6. Start Valheim, load the character, check it is intact, and only then delete your backup.

The maintained tool for this today is VikingEditor, a desktop editor that decompiles, edits and recompiles .fch files and handles the signing. Its v2.0.0, released 11 September 2026, states full compatibility with Valheim 1.0 saves.

Be aware of what that means. It is a young project: two days newer than 1.0 itself, a couple of dozen GitHub stars, under a hundred downloads of that release. We are pointing at it because it is the only actively maintained option that claims 1.0 support, not because it has years of use behind it. Your backup is doing the real work here.

Method 2: a rename mod

Two mods add an Edit button to the character selection screen. Neither has a build published since Valheim 1.0, and Iron Gate do not guarantee mod compatibility across it.

• CharacterEditButton, the barrett_50_cal package, v0.9.1 from 18 July 2026. This is the maintained fork. Several older forks of the same mod under other authors are deprecated on Thunderstore: check the author before installing.
• Pseudonym by ComfyMods, v1.4.0 from 23 July 2024. Well used at around 26,000 downloads, but that build is over two years old and predates Ashlands, let alone 1.0.

If you try either, back the character up first and expect to remove the mod if the game will not load. Our Valheim 1.0 mod compatibility tracker is swept daily and will say when a 1.0 build lands.

Method 3: a new character (works everywhere, including console)

This is the only option on PS5, Xbox and Switch 2, where there is no save-editing or mod route at all. It is also the safest option on PC.

1. Log in with your current character and drop everything you want to keep into a chest, in a base you can find again.
2. Create a new character with the name you want.
3. Join the same world or server and collect it.

A new character is not a rename. Your gear moves because you moved it. Your skill levels, your character’s own progression state and its map exploration do not: they live in the old character’s save, which is still on disk if you change your mind.

Do not use console commands to rebuild your skills

For completeness, on Steam the console is not simply the F5 key: you have to add -console to the game’s launch options first, and most cheat commands then need devcommands typed in before they will run.

Can a server admin rename a player?

No. Vanilla dedicated-server admin controls cover kicking, banning and unbanning; there is no admin command that renames a player’s character. The character is the player’s own save file on their own machine, so the rename has to happen there. If you run the server, the most useful thing you can do is tell the player to back the character up before they edit it.

Frequently asked

Will I lose my inventory?

Not if you rename the save: the character is unchanged apart from its name. If you make a new character instead, you keep only what you physically moved through a chest.

Does this change my Steam name?

No. The Valheim character name and your Steam profile name are separate. Renaming the character does not touch your Steam account, and other players on a server see the character name.

Can I keep my skills and my map?

Only by renaming the existing save. Both live in the character file, so a new character starts with neither.

Where is the character file?

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\characters\ on Windows, once the character is set to Local rather than Cloud.

Will renaming affect achievements?

Renaming the save is not a developer command and is not what the cheat flag tracks. Using devcommands is. See the warning above.

Can I rename on PS5, Xbox or Switch 2?

Not by editing anything. Console players have the new-character route only.

Related

• Valheim 1.0: what shipped, and what it means for a server
• Valheim 1.0 mod compatibility: what works and what breaks
• PS5, Switch 2 and crossplay setup
• Console players on a dedicated server

Running the world your renamed Viking comes home to? Valheim server hosting takes a backup before every game update, which is the same habit this whole page is built on.