Echo Creek missing from your spawn list?

Start in Echo Creek

1. Start a new solo game and select Custom Sandbox.
2. Look for Echo Creek on the location selection screen. Select it before continuing with your survivor.
3. Keep the world settings you intended to use. Changing the game mode also exposes settings that can change the difficulty.

This changes the start of a new game. It does not move an existing survivor or repair an incompatible save.

Was the Echo Creek spawn removed?

Spawn availability changed during Build 42 testing. The official 42.17 update lists Echo Creek among the additional Sandbox starts. Players reported the same Sandbox distinction after the Stable release.

Missing spawn is not a missing town. If a search for “Echo Creek map missing” brought you here, first distinguish the location-selection screen from an in-game or community map. This guide fixes the first problem; it does not troubleshoot map mods.

Missing on a multiplayer server?

A server chooses its own spawn regions. An older 42.13 dedicated-server report describes a missing Echo Creek entry in spawnregions.lua; that is a different issue from the solo mode restriction above.

Ask the host which build and spawn regions the server uses. Do not paste an old spawn file into a live server as a general fix: custom maps and server settings can change the result.

An old save will not load

If the error happens while loading a save, switching to Custom Sandbox is not a save-repair procedure. The developer explicitly states that Build 41 saves are incompatible with Build 42, and that 42.19 saves are incompatible with 42.20.

Keep a backup. Use the matching legacy branch when the developer provides one instead of testing fixes on your only copy.