How to Build a Multiplayer Game for Mobile

​Mobile gaming has become one of the most lucrative globally in recent years, and forecasts point to strong growth. According to Statista, the mobile gaming market is estimated to grow to $103 billion by 2027. This boom can be credited mainly to the growing popularity of multiplayer mobile games, which provide interactive and social elements beyond what is possible with a single-player game. However, for developers who want to build multiplayer games, the challenge becomes more complicated as they must consider real-time networking, server infrastructure, and synchronization techniques for a seamless player experience.

Creating mobile multiplayer games is inherently different from creating single-player games. These include establishing networking protocols, server infrastructures, and real-time data synchronization to ensure a smooth player experience. When addressing these issues, developers should consider things like balancing to ensure no single player or strategy dominates the game and to maintain fairness and competition.

Understanding how to make a multiplayer game involves knowing where to set up your networking, server infrastructure, and real-time data transfer to make the player experience as smooth as possible. This guide will explore the essential components of building a multiplayer mobile game, including game engine selection, backend development, optimization, and post-launch strategies.

Core Mechanics and Player Interactions

Multiplayer games involve more than one player participating in a single game environment, collaboratively or in competition. One of the most compelling features of mobile multiplayer games, as opposed to single-player games, is their social and competitive aspects, making the gaming experience more engaging and varied.

These games range from real-time action to turn-based strategy, enabling players to engage in numerous ways. Knowing how to create multiplayer mobile game means understanding the balance between game mechanics, real-time data synchronization, and solid server infrastructure capable of handling thousands of simultaneous users.

Multiplayer games are classified by the style of play, with the most common classifications being synchronous and asynchronous multiplayer games.

1. Synchronous multiplayer games involve players interacting with each other in real-time, and low-latency networking is critical for a smooth play experience. This type includes real-time physics synchronization, low latency requirements, and hit detection in real-time. Genres include first-person shooters, multiplayer battle arenas, and battle royale.
2. Asynchronous multiplayer games do not depend on real-time connections, allowing players to act simultaneously. These games usually rely on backend data storage, which is when they are updated and processed when players reconnect. This type of game includes turn-based strategy games, digital card games, and simulation-based experiences.

To create multiplayer mobile game, developers have to rely on some features that make the actual game enjoyable. Such matchmaking systems create a rich experience, ensuring paired players have comparable skill levels or preferences for fair and challenging gameplay. All players like competitions, so leaderboards and ranking systems motivate players to improve their performance and climb the ranks.

Did You Know? The first real-time multiplayer mobile game, Snake II on Nokia, was launched in 1999, long before players enjoyed today’s seamless online gaming experiences. Multiplayer gaming has progressed with cloud-based networking, 5G, and cross-platform play.

Key Components of a Multiplayer Game

Understanding how to create a multiplayer mobile game requires planning networking, architecting servers, and synchronizing data in real-time. A multiplayer game has interconnected components that ensure real-time interactions, smooth gameplay, and an enjoyable player experience. Each part is key to maintaining stability, security, and scalability.

• Client Application – the game is developed using Unity, Unreal Engine, or other platforms. It handles rendering, UI, player interactivity, etc.
• Backend Server – coordinates game logic, user authentication, matchmaking, and real-time data syncing to provide a fluid multiplayer experience.
• Database – retains player information and allows for storing game progress, leaderboards, and game states. It can use SQL, NoSQL, or Firebase according to the game’s database structure needs.
• Networking and Synchronization – focused on creating low-latency player-to-player communication with the server and between the players themselves and real-time connection sessions with servers and clients.
• Matchmaking System – matchmaking system is an essential component of successfully developed multiplayer games. It groups players based on ranking, location, skill level, or game mode preferences, ensuring that fair and competitive matches are formed.
• Lobby System – to successfully create multiplayer mobile game, developers should enable players to create or join rooms, chat, and modify pre-game settings to improve interaction before gameplay starts.
• Game State Management – synchronizes all client world states, player movements, physics, and events.
• Admin Panel – a web-based dashboard for managing user accounts, game data, in-game content, and analytics, giving developers operational control.
• CDN (Content Delivery System) – this system distributes game assets, updates, and patches to the end user, minimizing downloading times and making them accessible in different regions.
• Analytics and Telemetry – when looking to create multiplayer mobile game, game developers want to track player behaviors, engagements, and performance metrics to assist developers in fine-tuning and optimizing game features.
• Security and Anti-Cheat – If you wish to build multiplayer games, you must also work on the encryption process, validation checks, and anti-cheat mechanisms to avoid hacking, cheating, and exploitation.
• Voice and Text Chat System – this system offers communication features, including in-game voice chat, text messaging, and emote interactions, through tools such as Vivox and Discord API.
• Payments and Monetization – handles in-game purchases, subscriptions, and virtual currency transactions to ensure secure and seamless financial operations.

To have a fully working multiplayer game, you need all these components correctly set up. They are responsible for some fundamental characteristics of a multiplayer game, such as smooth interactions, fair matchmaking, and an enjoyable player experience.

Pro Tip: Minimize your communication footprint by using well-known techniques to send only relevant data, like positions and actions performed by players. By keeping track of how significant the changes are and only sending updates for the objects in the user’s state instead of everything in the world (interest management), the lag can be significantly reduced, and performance can be improved due to having less data to send.

Choosing the Right Multiplayer Game Engine

To discover how to make a multiplayer game, developers should consider the selection of an appropriate gaming engine, implementing systems for matchmaking between players, and optimizations for servers to ensure low-latency interactions with the gameplay. The engine affects performance, networking, scalability, and development efficiency. In this section, we go through each multiplayer game engine for mobile and their features, pros, and cons.

Unity – The Most Versatile Multiplayer Game Engine

Unity is well known for its versatility and strong support for multiplayer game development. It provides integrated networking solutions such as Netcode for GameObjects and Unity Multiplayer Services, enabling real-time player interactions. One of the most significant advantages of Unity is its cross-platform compatibility, which allows seamless deployment of games across multiple mobile platforms. Since Unity is very popular, its asset library is huge, and there are many third-party integrations.​

Pros:

• You can create apps running on Android, iOS, and other platforms.
• Rich developer ecosystem with lots of documentation and third-party tooling.
• Netcode for GameObjects and Unity Multiplayer Services built-in for you.
• It has customizable support for multiple networking solutions like Mirror, FishNet, Photon etc.

Cons:

• Other networking solutions might demand further customization and configuration.
• May suffer from performance bottlenecks in large multiplayer scenarios.
• Some enterprise-level projects can’t rely on Unity’s built-in multiplayer services.

If you’re interested in creating a multiplayer game in Unity, there’s a practical guide that walks through the core development process, from networking setup to deployment strategies.

Unreal Engine – High-Performance Game Engine for Multiplayer Games

Unreal Engine is famous for providing the best in class graphics and excellent networking capabilities, and it suits developers looking to build multiplayer mobile games with high-fidelity visuals and smooth online interactions. The Unreal Networking Framework and replication system are built to optimize even the most intricate features that can save us all from that pesky latency during real-time play.

Pros:

• Superior graphics and the ability to render in real-time.
• Built-in multiplayer framework with Unreal Networking Framework and replication engine.
• It’s highly scalable, making it perfect for extensive online multiplayer experiences.
• Optimized for shooter, battle royale, and open-world multiplayer games.

Cons:

• Requires more experience in C++ and blueprint script, with a steeper learning curve than Unity.
• Higher hardware requirements are required for both development and gameplay.
• Bigger build sizes and longer compile times are needed.

For game creators considering this stack, exploring guide below offers deeper insight into best practices, tools, and strategies for building multiplayer projects.

Photon – Cloud-Based Multiplayer Game Solution

Photon provides cloud-hosted multiplayer services designed for mobile games, such as Photon PUN, Photon Fusion, and Photon Quantum. These services allow for rapid deployment and instantaneous synchronization, ensuring a seamless multiplayer experience. Photon is highly scalable, which is great for mobile platforms, enabling games to support different numbers of players without impacting performance. However, its subscription-based pricing model could get expensive over time for larger projects or studios limited by budget.

Pros:

• Real-time networking with Photon PUN, Photon Fusion, and Photon Quantum with fast implementation.
• Cloud infrastructure provides scalable solutions and lowers the need for dedicated servers.
• It supports low-latency multiplayer gaming, making it suitable for fast-paced mobile games.
• Cross-platform multiplayer with iOS, Android, and Web.

Cons:

• High-player count games can begin to incur costly expenses on a subscription basis.
• The most advanced networking features require additional customization.
• Cloud dependency means developers no longer have the same control over server-side performance.
• Cloud dependency means developers have less control over server-side performance.

One example of a successful implementation is the Big Bash game, where the Photon services was used during the development phase to support real-time connectivity and smooth gameplay across mobile platforms.

FishNet – Lightweight Alternative for Unity Multiplayer

FishNet is a next-gen networking library for Unity. It allows for custom transport layers, giving developers more freedom about how data is communicated between clients and servers. FishNet is open-source, which means developers can adjust and add different features to it to create multiplayer mobile game they want specifically. That said, it certainly has less documentation and community support than more established solutions like Mirror or Photon, which may be problematic in development. In cases where lightweight network solutions need to pair with browser-based builds, Unity WebGL offer an effective deployment method that complements FishNet’s modular approach.

Pros:

• High performance with less bandwidth and latency.
• It is open-source and free to use, so developers can modify it to meet specific needs.
• Supports a custom transport layer, which provides flexibility in networking solutions.
• Requires less overhead than other networking solutions like Mirror.

Cons:

• There is less documentation and a smaller community than in Photon and Mirror.
• Some multiplayer mechanics require manual configuration.
• There is no integrated cloud support, so developers need to provide their server infrastructure.

SignalR – Real-Time Communication for Multiplayer Games

SignalR, developed by Microsoft, creates real-time web-based multiplayer games and backend synchronizations. It allows you to use WebSockets to examine data and provide full fallback on other protocols. SignalR can easily be integrated with NET apps, so it works well for developers in the Microsoft ecosystem. However, it needs self-hosted server infrastructure and is not targeted at large-scale matchmaking, so it can not be applied to big mobile multiplayer games with huge specifics.

Pros:

• Well-suited for web-based multiplayer games and real-time apps.
• Easy integration with NET-based backends.
• Supports WebSockets and automatically falls back to other protocols.
• It works well for small-scale multiplayer interactions like chat, leaderboards, and turn-based mechanics.

Cons:

• Not optimized for fast-paced real-time multiplayer games (FPS, MOBA, etc.).
• Self-hosted server infrastructure requires proactive maintenance effort.
• It’s not fit for large-scale matchmaking and session management.

GameLift – AWS-Powered Dedicated Server Solution

Amazon GameLift is a managed service that enables you to deploy and scale dedicated game servers for multiplayer games, providing features such as autoscaling, matchmaking, and session management. Moreover, its high scalability enables the games to effectively manage fluctuations in the number of active players. GameLift is also well integrated with other AWS services, making it a complete backend solution. Nonetheless, GameLift usage is limited due to being tied to AWS infrastructure. Costs can soar based on your usage patterns, so planning and monitoring all expenditures appropriately is key.

Pros:

• Cloud-based solution that is highly scalable and automatically adjusts resources according to player demand.
• A good option for cloud-based applications as it plays well with AWS services and applications.
• Compatible with several game engines: Unity, Unreal, and custom frameworks.
• Robust security features and DDoS attack protection on the server.

Cons:

• AWS knowledge is needed, which might be the pain point for developers unfamiliar with cloud infrastructure.
• Expensive for large-scale deployments since cost is measured by server use.
• More appropriate for dedicated server-type games than peer-to-peer multiplayer games.

Did You Know? Predictive algorithms are used in multiplayer mobile games to minimize lag. When a player moves or performs an action, the game often predicts the following action before the server returns confirmation. This technique, known as client-side prediction, helps smooth out the experience even with slight network delays.

Selecting the Right Game Type for Your Multiplayer Mobile Game

Choosing the correct game type is a key decision in multiplayer game development, as it involves many other details, such as server architecture, networking, and latency requirements.

PvP (Player vs. Player)

PvP games revolve around competitive interactions, where players face off against one another in skill-based matches. Low-latency networking is essential to these games since they must respond to actions in real-time, and lag compensation methods, such as rollback net code and client-side prediction, are vital for smooth gameplay.

Proper matchmaking is a key feature of pairing players with similar skill levels. To maintain fair play, server-side validation, and anti-cheat mechanisms must be in place, as peer-to-peer networking often introduces vulnerabilities that allow exploits. To facilitate seamless player interactions, reliable server management is of utmost importance.

A great example of such a project is Battle Legende — a mobile PvP multiplayer turn-based cards game developed by the Fgfactory team.

Co-op (Co-operative Multiplayer)

Co-mobile multiplayer games emphasize working together and achieving common goals, with players working together to complete missions, solve puzzles, or succeed in cooperative combat. While PvP is all about players fighting against one another, co-op games are all about players working with each other, which means they can generally tolerate more network latency.

However, challenges arise when dealing with shared game states, especially when multiple players interact with the same objects in the game world. Co-op games must use robust data replication methods to avoid becoming desynchronized: actions taken by one player must be properly replicated for all teammates.

Battle Royale

Networking for battle royale games is not easy, especially if you have such a large game world and up to 100 players in a game. Large-scale maps must be synchronized efficiently across multiple players, ensuring that all interactions, from movement to combat, are accurately replicated in real-time.

Match stability is also very important since any delay in updating can significantly affect the fairness of this game. Efficient server allocation, dynamic scaling, and cloud-based game hosting solutions are vital in maintaining performance as the number of players fluctuates within each match.

Battle royale remains among the most popular video game genres due to its competitive intensity and large-scale multiplayer dynamics, making it a prime example of the need for advanced networking and backend infrastructure.

MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online)

MMO games function on a much larger scale, requiring extensive infrastructure to support thousands of simultaneous players interacting in persistent game worlds. This differs from smaller multiplayer sessions, where the database scale primarily concerns player statuses and a few mechanics. MMO environments require solid database management, as everything involving player progression, inventory systems, and world persistence must be carefully organized.

When developers want to build multiplayer mobile game, server architecture needs to be designed to handle vast numbers of players on an MMO scale. Traditionally, this means sharding or faking out separate servers for different regions or areas of game, so traffic is spread out. Without proper load balancing, latency issues can become a significant problem, negatively impacting the user experience.

MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)

MOBA games require a unique blend of real-time action and strategic team-based gameplay, making latency management a key challenge. Such games have multiple players within an enclosed arena that compete through exact movements and skill use that can determine match results. In MOBA, action verification helps prevent hacks from being funneled to players, ensuring player actions always have server-side validation to eliminate any possible exploitation on the client.

Synchronizing physics and collision detection across multiple players while maintaining smooth performance is crucial to MOBA development. Efficient packet handling, predictive algorithms, and dedicated matchmaking systems contribute to balanced and competitive gameplay.

Pro Tip: Test your multiplayer game in real-world conditions – Simulate high-latency scenarios, packet loss, and network fluctuations to ensure your game performs well on all types of connections. A stable experience across different devices and network conditions will keep players engaged.

Types of Servers for Mobile Multiplayer Projects

An essential part of developing a multiplayer game is setting up a mobile game server. You should do so by choosing exemplary architecture because that matters a lot regarding the game’s performance and scalability and the player experience. We will look at different backend servers used for various multiplayer models: real-time or asynchronous, cloud-based or local.

Local Multiplayer Servers – Offline and LAN-Based Play

Local multiplayer servers are enabled through LAN, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth without using the Internet. This configuration is suitable for couch co-op offline tournaments or small-scale multiplayer experiences. Since these servers operate locally on a host device, they require no external infrastructure, which allows for dramatically lower latency.

Even for mobile game developers who want to build multiplayer mobile game with an emphasis on local connections, a LAN-based application will enhance the user experience by providing minimal lag and connectivity. These games often stream their sessions over a local network, so nearby players can hop in immediately.

Turn-based and Asynchronous servers

Turn-based multiplayer games do not require real-time communication with the server, so they consume much less resources. These are request-response games in which each player’s move is sent to the server, stored, and retrieved by opponents when they play.

Turn-based games, less sensitive to network latency, could ideally synchronize match persistence. Backend solutions such as Firebase can store game states, enabling players to continue matches after being disconnected using NoSQL databases or cloud storage services. Reliable event queuing is necessary to execute moves in the correct order when players reconnect, and dealing with synchronization delays in these games is trickier than you’d think. It is widely used in card games, board games, and strategy-based multiplayer experiences.

Real-Time Multiplayer Servers

Developing a real-time multiplayer game poses several technical challenges, such as latency management, player synchronization, or packet loss handling. Because real-time games always communicate between clients and the server, low-latency networking solutions such as WebSockets or Photon, as are libraries such as Mirror, are key.

Most games are made over UDP (User Datagram Protocol) instead of TCP since UDP is faster than TCP, though it might not consistently deliver packets. Technologies such as lag compensation, dead reckoning, and predictive movement algorithms can compensate for relatively slow gameplay responses on slower networks.

Implementing Multiplayer Game Logic

If you’re researching how to make a multiplayer game, gameplay logic must cater to every player to ensure an optimal experience for all players. This process involves a few things, from matchmaking to data management.

Matchmaking Systems for Fair Play

Mobile multiplayer games rely on good matchmaking to even the playing field. This groups players with similar skill levels, play styles, or other factors to maintain balanced and competitive games. These player ratings, like Elo or TrueSkill, can be leveraged by efficient matchmaking systems to compute matches that improve the gaming experience by avoiding mismatches, which are considered to lead to player dissatisfaction.

Synchronizing Player Actions, Physics, and In-Game Events

Learning how to create multiplayer mobile games involves mastering client-server communication, latency reduction techniques, and cloud-based solutions for scalable backend management. It is paramount to synchronize everything in a multiplayer game to ensure everyone sees the same game state simultaneously. These are player movements, interactions, and physics-based events. Techniques such as state reconciliation and prediction algorithms are commonplace to mitigate the detrimental effects of latency on a player’s experience. Examples include client-side prediction to offer immediate feedback for player inputs and server reconciliation to synchronize the game state for all clients.

Integrating AI-Driven Bots

Integrating AI-driven bots can effectively maintain engagement and provide a full gameplay experience, especially when player numbers are low. Essentially, these bots behave similarly to play, helping to fill lobbies in off-peak hours and stepping in for lost players if a match is already in progress so that games can begin on time and be competitive.

User Authorization

Another crucial part of multiplayer game development is securing and managing player identities. You need to implement user authorization processes to ensure that your players use their accounts and private data securely. You could use OAuth, JWT (JSON Web Tokens), or create your own custom token-based authentication system to safely handle user sessions and data access.

Database Setup for Data Storing and Management

The robust backend database handles all information related to user data, game states, player progression, etc. For instance, SQL databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL can handle complex queries efficiently, making them suitable for games with intricate data relationships. NoSQL databases like MongoDB or Firebase provide flexibility and scalability for large volumes of unstructured data, such as player statistics or game events.

Creating a strong database helps ensure the integrity of the game’s data, which is necessary for maintaining the game and providing a consistent user experience. Data integrity, high availability, and reliability can be maintained by implementing such systems with redundant storage solutions, which enable regular backups of information and databases.

Post-Launch Strategies and Live Updates

Once you launch a mobile multiplayer game, the work is not over. Keeping the player base engaged with new content and improvements is essential. Developers who can successfully build multiplayer mobile game understand that the after-launch process is equally critical as the development phase. Maintaining player interest guarantees longevity, strengthens the user base, and maintains revenue streams via in-game purchases or subscriptions.

Keeping the Game Fresh with New Content and Live Events

The frequent addition of new content is vital for retaining and keeping players engaged. You need new levels, characters, abilities, and special events with unique rewards that you can only get through playing. This is why live events work so well – they leverage that sense of urgency and community around fun and competition to get players to show up and earn one-of-a-kind content.

Scaling Multiplayer Mobile Games

As you grow your player base, scaling your game servers to handle the increased load is necessary. This means tuning the server and probably implementing cloud-based solutions that can scale resources up and down based on current requests. Scaling effectively helps with performance and ensures that your game offers a smooth experience, even when the number of users reaches its peak.

Implementing Anti-Cheat Systems and Security Updates

Therefore, ensuring a cheating-free environment involves a healthy amount of anti-cheat measures. This may include software that detects and prevents common cheats like aimbots or wallhacks. Regular security updates must also be performed to keep users’ data safe and to avoid any exploits that could breach the integrity of the game. These measures help build trust with your player base, showing that you are committed to fair play and data security.

Why Choose Fgfactory for Multiplayer Game Development?

A multiplayer game development company is essential for creating a seamless online experience, ensuring optimized networking, optimal server capacity, and game mechanics, making choices to reduce latency, escalating real-time synchronization, efficient data routing, etc., to have an infinite player base.

We are proud of our strong expertise in multiplayer game creation and extensive experience building and launching multiplayer mobile games. Our featured case, Racer Club, combines advanced technologies such as Unreal Engine 5, blockchain, and NFTs to provide players with a rich, immersive racing experience that integrates the latest technologies.

We provide end-to-end game development from the idea to the launch. Our approach is to design scalable multiplayer infrastructures that can handle real-time interactions and intricate game mechanics to maintain fairness and user engagement. We invest in the latest technologies and provide solutions custom-fitted to our clients’ needs.

Partnering with us means you have a team with technical experience creating beautiful and feature-rich games. We guide our experiences from concept to launch and beyond, making sure every game we build is brilliant and an absolute blast to play. If you are looking for a trusted multiplayer game development partner, we are ready to help you. Contact us today to discuss your project and learn how we can help bring your idea to life.