How To Change The Language On Your Project Zomboid Server

By default your Project Zomboid server runs in English, which means server-generated text such as radio and TV broadcasts, item names and world text will stay in English even if your players have changed the language in their own game. To translate that content you need to set the language in your server's options.ini and then set the same language in your ProjectZomboid64.json file.

Setting The Server Language

In this example we'll set the server to German, which uses the language code DE. Swap this for the code of the language you want, some example codes can be found further down this guide.

1. Access the GhostCap Panel and Stop your server.
2. In the sidebar, go to File Manager.
3. Navigate to and open .cache/options.ini.
4. Find the language line and change it to your preferred language code, then click Save:

   language=DE
   

5. Go back to the root folder in File Manager and open ProjectZomboid64.json.
6. Find the vmArgs section and add the following line to it, using the lowercase version of your language code:

   "-Duser.language=de",
   

   Your vmArgs section should end up looking similar to this, leaving the rest of the arguments as they are:

   "vmArgs": [
       "-Duser.language=de",
       "-Djava.awt.headless=true",
       "-Xmx4656m",
       "-Dzomboid.steam=1",
       "-Dzomboid.znetlog=1",
       ...
   ]
   

7. Click Save and Start your server.

Project Zomboid Language Codes

Here are the codes for some of the most commonly used languages. Set language to the value in your options.ini file, and add the matching line to vmArgs in your ProjectZomboid64.json file.

Project Zomboid supports more languages than the ones listed above. You can find the code for any other language in the game's options menu.