Do we need dedicated servers?

Not always. Co-op and casual games often work well with relay or host-based networking, which costs far less to run. Competitive games, persistent worlds and anything where cheating matters usually need authoritative dedicated servers. We compare cheating risk, player experience and monthly hosting costs with you before deciding.

Which networking frameworks do you use?

We work with engine-native options such as Unreal’s replication system and Unity’s Netcode for GameObjects, plus established libraries like Mirror, Photon and Nakama, and custom solutions when a genre demands it. The right choice depends on genre, player count and hosting plans, and we document the reasoning.

How do you keep server costs under control?

We measure how many matches each server instance can host, size instances accordingly and scale them up and down with demand. Choices like tick rate and what state gets synchronized also affect bandwidth. You see the cost model before launch, and hosting runs in accounts you own.

Can you add multiplayer to our single-player game?

Sometimes, but it is rarely a simple add-on. Single-player code often assumes one authoritative player and local state everywhere. We audit the project, estimate the restructuring involved and recommend a path, which may be co-op first or a narrower online mode, before you commit.

How do you handle players with poor connections?

We design for it from the start. Client-side prediction and smoothing hide moderate latency, while clear rules decide what happens when packets are lost or a player drops. Region-based matchmaking keeps ping lower, and reconnect support lets players rejoin a match in progress. We test throughout with simulated bad connections, so we see how the game feels at high latency long before players report it.

Should we add cross-play between platforms?

Cross-play enlarges the player pool, which helps matchmaking, but adds work: account linking, platform-specific rules from console holders, input differences between controller and mouse players, and coordinated updates so versions stay compatible. We assess whether your audience and genre benefit enough to justify that work, and if so, design the account and matchmaking systems with cross-play in mind from the beginning.

Game & Immersive Development · Multiplayer systems

Online play that stays fair under real latency

We design and build multiplayer systems — netcode, matchmaking, lobbies and dedicated or relay servers — choosing an architecture that matches your genre, player counts and budget for running servers after launch.

Authoritative netcode
Lag compensation
Matchmaking and lobbies

Start your project How we work

Overview

The decisions behind good online play

Every multiplayer game is a trade between responsiveness, fairness and hosting cost. Letting each client decide what happened feels instant but invites cheating. Having a server decide everything is fair but feels sluggish unless the client predicts movement and corrects smoothly. Turn-based and cooperative games can use lighter models than fast competitive shooters. We pick the model from your genre, player count and tolerance for cheating, then design the game’s rules around it.

Buyers face practical questions alongside the technical ones. Do you need dedicated servers from day one, or can relays carry an early release? Should matchmaking use skill ratings, regions or simple lobbies with invite codes? How will you handle disconnects, rejoining and players on very different connections? Each answer affects both the build and the monthly hosting bill, so we model expected costs with you before committing.

Good multiplayer work is measured under pressure: simulated latency and packet loss during development, bot-driven load tests before launch, and dashboards that show server health once real players arrive. After launch, those same tools help your team spot problems early and decide when to add capacity, without guessing from player complaints alone.

Who it’s for

Built for teams like yours

01
Teams planning online play
Studios designing a new competitive or cooperative game who need the network architecture chosen and proven before the rest of the game is built on top of it.
02
Single-player games adding co-op
Owners of an existing game who want to add online cooperative or versus modes and need an honest assessment of what the codebase can support.
03
Games struggling at scale
Live titles with desync, rubber-banding, cheating reports or rising server bills that need diagnosis and targeted fixes rather than a costly full rewrite of their networking code.

Why it matters

Networking decisions are hard to undo

The choice between peer-to-peer, relay and authoritative dedicated servers shapes cheating risk, hosting costs and how the game feels at 150 ms of latency. We make that call with you early, then build prediction, reconciliation and interpolation so movement and hits feel responsive without letting clients decide outcomes they should not control.

We load-test before launch, because multiplayer bugs usually appear only when many real players connect at once. Servers run in your own cloud account, with runbooks your team can follow without us.

Every engagement includes

Architecture reviewtopology, tick rate and hosting model chosen for your genre and budget.
Network prototypecore movement and interaction tested under simulated latency and packet loss.
Server infrastructuregame servers, matchmaking and deployment set up in your cloud account.
Monitoringserver health, player counts and error tracking visible from day one.
Load testingbot-driven tests at and above expected concurrency before launch.
Runbooks & handoverdocumentation for deploying, scaling and troubleshooting the servers.

Features

Multiplayer building blocks

01
Authoritative netcode
Server-authoritative state with client prediction and reconciliation, so play feels responsive and outcomes stay trustworthy.
02
Lag compensation
Interpolation, rollback or rewind techniques chosen to suit your genre, from shooters to fighting games.
03
Matchmaking and lobbies
Skill, region and party-based matchmaking with lobbies, friend invites and reconnect handling after dropped connections.
04
Dedicated server hosting
Containerized game servers that scale with demand, on hosting you control and pay for directly.
05
Cheat resistance
Server-side validation, rate limits and sensible trust boundaries that make common cheats harder.
06
Load and soak testing
Simulated players and long-running sessions that expose desyncs, leaks and bottlenecks before launch.

In practice

Multiplayer scenarios we handle

Competitive real-time matches
Server-authoritative gameplay with client prediction, lag compensation for hit detection and tick rates chosen for the genre, so matches feel responsive while results stay under server control and are hard to tamper with.
Cooperative sessions with friends
Lobby and invite flows, host migration or dedicated sessions, and drop-in, drop-out support so friends can join a game in progress without restarting it or losing the progress the group has already made.
Turn-based and asynchronous play
Games where players take turns minutes or days apart, using backend-stored game state, push notifications and validation so moves cannot be altered, replayed or submitted out of turn by a modified client.
Large shared spaces
Persistent or event-based spaces with many players, using interest management so each client only receives nearby updates, keeping bandwidth and server load within predictable limits as crowds grow during busy events.

Process

How we work

1
Network model choice
We compare peer-to-peer, relay and dedicated server options for your genre, decide tick rate and authority rules, and estimate hosting costs at several player-count scenarios, so the monthly hosting bill is understood before code is written.
2
Latency prototype
Core movement and interactions are built with prediction and reconciliation, then tested under simulated latency, jitter and packet loss so feel problems appear early, while they are still cheap to fix in the design.
3
Session services
Matchmaking, lobbies, invites, reconnect handling and server allocation are built or configured, with clear rules for regions, party sizes and what happens when a player disconnects or a server fails mid-match.
4
Bot load testing
Scripted bots connect in large numbers to measure server CPU, memory and bandwidth at and beyond expected concurrency, so capacity limits are known before launch and planned for in the hosting budget.
5
Ops and dashboards
Deployment scripts, autoscaling rules and dashboards for server health, match counts and errors are set up in your cloud account, with runbooks for common incidents such as a stuck server, a region outage or a bad deploy.

Deliverables

What you receive

Network architecture and authority document
Hosting cost model at several player counts
Netcode prototype tested under simulated latency
Matchmaking, lobby and reconnect services
Bot load-test scripts and results
Server deployment and autoscaling configuration
Incident runbooks and monitoring dashboards

Tools & methods

Netcode

Netcode for GameObjects
Mirror
Photon Fusion
Fish-Net
Unreal Replication

Servers & hosting

Agones
Kubernetes
AWS GameLift
Edgegap
Docker

Testing & monitoring

Network latency simulation
Locust
Prometheus
Grafana
Sentry

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Anything else about Multiplayer systems? Ask us directly.

Not always. Co-op and casual games often work well with relay or host-based networking, which costs far less to run. Competitive games, persistent worlds and anything where cheating matters usually need authoritative dedicated servers. We compare cheating risk, player experience and monthly hosting costs with you before deciding.
We design for it from the start. Client-side prediction and smoothing hide moderate latency, while clear rules decide what happens when packets are lost or a player drops. Region-based matchmaking keeps ping lower, and reconnect support lets players rejoin a match in progress. We test throughout with simulated bad connections, so we see how the game feels at high latency long before players report it.
Cross-play enlarges the player pool, which helps matchmaking, but adds work: account linking, platform-specific rules from console holders, input differences between controller and mouse players, and coordinated updates so versions stay compatible. We assess whether your audience and genre benefit enough to justify that work, and if so, design the account and matchmaking systems with cross-play in mind from the beginning.

Let’s work together

Have a project in mind?

Book a strategy call and we’ll show you exactly how to turn your goals into a system that generates consistent results.

Book a strategy call All services

Online play that stays fair under real latency

Authoritative netcode

Lag compensation

Matchmaking and lobbies

Dedicated server hosting

Cheat resistance

Load and soak testing

Competitive real-time matches

Cooperative sessions with friends

Turn-based and asynchronous play

Large shared spaces

Network model choice

Latency prototype

Session services

Bot load testing

Ops and dashboards

01Do we need dedicated servers?

02Which networking frameworks do you use?

03How do you keep server costs under control?

04Can you add multiplayer to our single-player game?

05How do you handle players with poor connections?

06Should we add cross-play between platforms?

Have a project in mind?