The Once Human dev team has confirmed a major shift for permanent servers. On September 10, 2025, there will be one final World merge. After that, permanent servers will no longer face forced merges. Instead, players will have the option to voluntarily migrate to the World they want.
This decision comes after months of feedback from players who said stability and consistency matter more than the disruptive cycle of merges. According to the devs, new backend optimizations mean that merges are no longer necessary to keep servers healthy.
Another big change lands on September 11 with adjustments to sign-up rules. Once a character joins a permanent server or a settlement-phase server, they will face a 12-hour cooldown before joining another. Repeated sign-ups in the same month will increase that cooldown, but everything resets on the first of the month. The goal is to make server communities stronger and easier to navigate.
If you want to read the official announcement straight from the source, you can find it here: Once Human Dev Blog – Permanent Servers Update
The bottom line is clear. Once Human is moving away from forced server merges and focusing on long-term stability for permanent servers. For players who have invested time and energy into their Worlds, that is good news.