UPDATE (April 17, 2020): with Meetups now allowing Zwifters to schedule events on all open worlds, world hacking via a Meetup may be your simplest option. Especially if you’re on AppleTV, Android, or iOS! See this post for details.
When selecting a route to run or ride, Zwifters must choose between Watopia and two guest worlds which rotate according to the monthly course schedule set by Zwift HQ.
If you want to ride on a guest map that isn’t featured for the day, here’s an easy hack that lets you ride any course at any time.
You have a prefs.xml file in your Zwift user directory (which is in your Documents/Zwift directory on PC/Mac). Before starting up Zwift, open this file in a text editor like Wordpad and simply add one of the following tags to force Zwift to place you in Watopia, Richmond, London, or Innsbruck.
To ride Watopia, add: <WORLD>1</WORLD>
To ride Richmond, add: <WORLD>2</WORLD>
To ride London, add:<WORLD>3</WORLD>
To ride New York, add:<WORLD>4</WORLD>
To ride Innsbruck, add: <WORLD>5</WORLD>
To ride Yorkshire, add: <WORLD>7</WORLD>
To ride France, add: <WORLD>10</WORLD>
To ride Paris, add: <WORLD>11</WORLD>
This text should go just after the opening <ZWIFT> tag near the top of the file. (If you place it inside of a section like “<DEVICES>” then it will not work.)
Using Zwift iOS? Here’s how to accomplish this same hack on your iDevice.
Important: Do not insert bogus values into your preferences file! Invalid values will just make Zwift behave unpredictably or even crash. Follow the instructions above carefully and you’ll be safe.
Sample
Here is a sample prefs.xml file which forces Zwift to always allow Richmond access (added text is in red):
<ZWIFT>
<WORLD>2</WORLD>
<DEVICES>
<LASTCADENCEDEVICE>720996</LASTCADENCEDEVICE>
<LASTPOWERDEVICE>720996</LASTPOWERDEVICE>
</DEVICES>
<CONFIG>
<RICHMOND_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>0</RICHMOND_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
<BRANCH_PREFERENCE>4</BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
</CONFIG>
<WORKOUTS>
<USE_ERG>1</USE_ERG>
</WORKOUTS>
</ZWIFT>
Is there a world number for Bologna?
Bologna is 7, Crit City is 8. But you can’t world hack into either of them.
Are you sure for Bologna? In your article you’re saying that 7 is Yorkshire: To ride Yorkshire, add: <WORLD>7</WORLD>
Bologna is 6. Still can’t hack into in.
Forget this hack. Create a meet-up using the Companion App. You can choose any world at anytime. The only downside is that you have to invite at least one person.
do i have to close everything of zwift, and then edit the xml, and then restart zwift?
Because it doesn’t work on my computer.
You should edit the XML file BEFORE you start up Zwift. Zwift checks the XML when it starts up, and re-saves it when it exits. So any changes made while Zwift is running will be overwritten.
Yeah. I’m having the same problem. Can someone please confirm this hack still works?
I apologize. I failed to notice the tab for “Watopia” actually did correctly read the name of the world I did the override for. All is right with the world, so to speak. Thanks!
It still works as of 13 June 2020
Christoph, in the event you haven’t resolved this, it MAY be because Zwift is still running in the background even though you’ve closed the Zwift window. If you click the upward-pointing arrow (“Show hidden icons”), and the Zwift icon is visible, right click on it and click “Exit”. Then, edit your “prefs.xml” file to identify the world you want to ride, and fire Zwift up again. Hopefully, you’ll see your world of choice on the first world tab.
I used this exploit to try Yorkshire a couple weeks ago, and on the subsequent ride I noticed that all of the “drops” I earned on that ride had been erased. I’m not sure if this happens for anyone else or if it also applies to the XP/levels. Has anyone else noticed this?
Doesn’t happen to me.
I read the article on riding any course at any time. I use the app in Apple TV. When will be able to pick any course any time?
thanks
No idea, Norman! AppleTV is the one device we haven’t figured out a world hack solution for.
The top of the page says “world hacking via a Meetup may be your simplest option. Especially if you’re on AppleTV, Android, or iOS! See this post for details.” Can you now pick a route on Apple TV? thanks
How do I find the documents/zwift directory on my iPad?
Here’s the link you want: https://zwiftinsider.com/world-tag-ios/
how do you get to it on a PC?
I tried to do as you wrote. Does not work.
I exit from Swift and write:
4
Launching a Swift.
The prefs.xml file is renamed to prefs.xml.INVALID
The popup opens in windowed mode.
I exit from Swift and write:
ZWIFT>
WORLD> 4
DEVICES>
I am writing <. The site does not allow to write this symbol in front (
Eric, I love and appreciate your stuff.
Can we ride hack the Event only cities? (Not that anybody would WANT to ride Bologna but Crit City might be cool.
Thanks
Unfortunately no! I agree, though, it would be cool.
I assume I need to go in and delete this tag when done??
As long as the tag is there, it will force you to that world each time you start Zwift.
Does this hack still work with the recent changes (2nd guest world) ?
Yep. I used the hack tonight and it worked fine.
how do you get to the zwift user directory?
I think Zwift has recently changed this with one of their updates. I can no longer find the WORLD tag in the preference file.
It still works, you just have to add the whole tag like this.
<ZWIFT>
<WORLD>5</WORLD>
<DEVICES>
First, do I also modify the _BRANCH_PREFERENCES tag to match my chosen world? Second, can I use this to get into the new France and Paris worlds? Last, is France 9 and Paris 10?
Thanks in advance,
Carolyn
No. Just do what’s above.
You can’t world hack into France or Paris at this time. But they’re 10 and 11.
You actually can hack into both France and Paris… 😉 You “just” have to hack the “mapschedule-files”… People are currently riding both Ven-Top and Champ E..
Yes, I also saw people riding the new maps. Do you know how to “hack” the mapschedule file? 😃
When you load Zwift, the MapSchedule_prev.xml is overwritten by Zwift. So if you modify it, Zwift will change it back. I’ve set it up as read only (Mac OS) but still, didn’t work. Would be interesting to know how those users have worked around that …
Got it! I’ve done the same thing, changed the Mapschedule to read only. When you start Zwift, the file can’t be changed, so Zwift generates a new file simular to “Mapschedule”. I’ve done the same thing again, and tadaaa, I can choose France and Paris 😁 I hope this information is fine to share… 😅
When I change the new map file (Mapschedule_V2.xml), Zwift doesn’t start (on OSX). What name have you used for the map? “FRANCE”? “PARIS”? Something else?
This hack seems to work on pc but not on mac (OSX)
Can you explain in more detail how you did it ? I have updated prefs.xml with <WORLD>10</WORLD. Then set MapScehdule_prev.xml as read only. When I start Zwift I don’t see any new worlds. I now have a MapSchedule_v2.xml file in Zwift folder. Do I need to do something with this ?
I changed in the first MapSchedule file “LONDON” to “PARIS” in the row with the actual date. Save and read only. Then start Zwift. Zwift will create a new file called “MapSchedule_v2”. So close Zwift and do the same change in the new file. Don’t forget to make it read only too. If you start Zwift now again it should work 🙂
Are you using MsWindows Simon? It does not work on OSX. When I change the files and make them read only, the next time I start Zwift I have an error message 🙁
I’m following the same method and get the error on Mac OS too. damn
Yes, I did this on a Windows computer.😬
worked for me, thank you! do i have to change the mapschedule every day? and to revert back normal, safest way would be delete v2 file, change original mapsched file back to “london” for every “france ” i entered, and delete world 10 from pref file? thanks again!
Thanks it works on my PC, now someone please find a way to do that on an iPad !
I can’t believe how easy this works on PC. I spent two hours getting it to work in offline mode and while it was nice to ride, it’s not good. This method took a minute and works so much better. Only need to change the current map to PARIS in the two mapschedule files and save and make read only and voila, 30 people riding with me in France. Thanks for the tip!
Thanks Simon – this gets me so far – when Zwift opens up I can see the Ven Top route, but when I go to ride it takes me back to a different world – i.e. doesn’t give me any France route options
You need to edit both files. If on MsWindows, make them read only and start Zwift. If you’re on a Mac, disconnect from Internet and start Zwift (click ok on the warning). When the login appears plug back Internet. Et voila!
It works if you replace all the LONDON text in the files to PARIS 😉
Even on a Mac?
No, works on Windows only. On Mac Zwift won’t start.
I managed to do this on a mac too, but it took some more fiddling. It will indeed crash if both files (_prev and _v2) are not writable. But there is a race-condition, so you can leave the _v2 file writable and then run a simple script while starting that constantly overwrites _v2 with the “hacked” _prev version of the file. May take a couple of tries, it’s a tight window. To avoid spilling system resources you can stop the script once Zwift is running with France active.
You’re officially a geek !
Thanks I guess. Or I was just so frustrated that I couldn’t ride it while the weather here warranted an indoor ride. 😉 Anyway, to try it, just do the hack as described on MapSchedule_prev.xml then run something like this on a terminal in the background: # while true; do cp MapSchedule_prev.xml MapSchedule_v2.xml; done And try to run Zwift a couple of times, as said it still needs to catch the small gap between when Zwift replaces the v2 file and it gets read, so it may not on work on try 1. You’ll see it it worked quick enough… Read more »
I don’t understand what I should typing on a terminal (macOS)?
the command “do” is not found …
Should be the entire line:
while true; do cp MapSchedule_prev.xml MapSchedule_v2.xml; done
Just found an even easier way to do this on mac: Just edit the MapSchedule_prev.xml file -> disable the network connection of your mac -> Start Zwift (Zwift will ask if you want to continue to start anyway, click yes) and wait for the login screen -> reenable internet -> profit.
No need to change file permissions this way either.
I will give it a try, thank you! I won’t be able to ride though, I’m using an Apple TV for that. But curious to see how it looks.
brilliant, this works for me. Thanks! 🙂
I get error Z101 on startup as Zwift always checks to download the latest version and can’t without an internet connection.
Windows or Mac? Windows => files in read only. Mac => disconnect internet, start Zwift, reconnect Internet at Login page. Other devices, don’t know.
Probably not.
Yes, scroll down
My 2 cents.. we are about to see the end of the “world hack” because of all of these keyboard warriors who desperately need to ride a new map in advance. We’ll be stuck to the scheduled maps because of this, you’ll see..
Or Zwift will consider changing the way it works. They’ve done it once, we went from one world to two (on top of Watopia).
When I rode Ven-Top earlier there were 12 of us in all of France. I can’t see Zwift worrying about that too much, personally 😀
They might get more upset if you crash the Pro races. But, surely, they would have additional protections for those, right?
If a bunch of people can crash a world, they have a serious problem !
I meant crash in the sense of “show up uninvited.”
😂
haha, good point! I wonder if that’d work…
(no, I’m certainly not going to try 😂)
You can’t “crash” a race. Try it for yourself – enter a few Zwift races and you’ll see no-one is visible except the riders entered. You don’t see anyone going the other way, even if racing in a world where there are thousands of people free riding that world.
Or just watch today’s Tour de France stage from Watopia while you ride the same route…
Managed to get Ven-Top access on MacBook. No need to edit prefs file with world tag. Just edit mapschedule_prev by changing current schedule’s location to “PARIS” (I changed “NEWYORK” to “PARIS” as that’s what’s currently in the schedule. I locked the file to be ‘read only’. I then ran Zwift first time, let it create mapschedule_v2, then edited the new version as before and also locked that file. Then ran Zwift again, turning off internet connectivity after the first dialogue box and before selecting ‘let’s go’, when it asks you to login, I turn internet connectivity back on, and it… Read more »
just edit the MapSchedule_prev.xml, disconnect internet, start Zwift, click ok on launch anyway, when login screen appears – duplicate the MapSchedule_prev.xml and rename it MapSchedule_v2.xml, reconnect internet, sign in, ride on
Is there a world number for Paris ? 6 ? or 8 work not
10-11
this worked for me a few days ago, but not working today? did they patch it? is it still working for others? i’m on PC
Yeah. I think they have patched it…
Are there world numbers for France yet?
Probably 10 and 11. But per comments above it doesn’t seem to load the worlds. Use the ‘MapSchedule’ hack to load the French routes (scroll up for details).
Is there a new world number for France?
France is 10, Paris is 11. But the world hack does not currently work for these maps. It probably will once they’re on the monthly schedule, starting in August.
Looks like <WORLD>=10 & 11now work as of today’s update. Just checked them both out.
Yes! Updated above.
One clarification is that the world tag hack replaces the first tab (watopia) out of the three available in zwift. So if you have another world hacked in you either need to delete the tag or change it to watopia to ride watopia routes
Is there a way to make it so all of the worlds are always available, or do you have to change the 1 line every time you want a different world?
You have to change all the time. Best is probably to set a meet-up using the companion app.
Surprised this editing tool wasn’t mentioned in the comments yet…
ZwiftHacks has a tool for this function on MacOS and Windows. Instead of manually editing the file, use the tool to do it for you. It’s called ZwiftPref. Get it at https://zwifthacks.com/zwiftpref/.
Latest article for this tool is at https://zwifthacks.com/world-hack-into-france-and-paris/
There’s another tool called zwift-preferences that might be better for Windows users.
Question – do you still receive badges for route completion and other challenges when world hacking?
Yes.
Nice, thanks for responding
If one does a meetup to do an off schedule world route is there any way to make the”finding riders” banner go away. It stayed there for full 2 hour ride. Was annoying.
The simplest way to ride solo is to create a meetup with a friend who you know will not be able to join you. I like to set this up just a few minutes before my ride. Don’t forget to click the button to not see any other riders. Now you can just enjoy a scenic recovery ride!
🤗