Online Multiplayer and Game Backend
Make authority, replicated state, session transitions, persistence, and degraded network behaviour explicit and testable.
Use When
- A game has remote players, lobbies, matchmaking, dedicated/listen servers, replicated actors/state, or backend-owned progression.
Do Not Use When
- The request is local multiplayer only.
- Anti-cheat, moderation, or infrastructure deployment is the main task; compose with their specialist skills.
Required Inputs
Engine/version, player/region/load envelope, topology, trust boundaries, tick/update budgets, gameplay state model, matchmaking rules, persistence ownership, privacy/security constraints, service objectives, cost limits, and version policy.
Workflow
- Choose topology from threat, fairness, latency, cost, and operational evidence; name the authority for every mutable field.
- Specify session states from discovery through allocation, join, play, disconnect, reconnect, migration/termination, and cleanup.
- Define replicated state, relevance/frequency, RPC direction/reliability/idempotency, prediction/reconciliation, and late-join snapshots.
- Separate ephemeral match state from durable profile/economy state; make retries and ownership transfers safe.
- Version protocol and content contracts; test compatible skew and reject incompatible clients with a recoverable message.
- Exercise latency, loss, jitter, reorder, duplication, disconnect, reconnect, server crash, region loss, overload, and malicious input.
Quality Standards
- The server validates consequential actions; a client request is never proof that an action was legal.
- Reliable delivery is used only for state that must arrive; queues must be bounded.
- Tests retain seed, build/protocol version, topology, network profile, server logs, and outcome.
Outputs
Authority matrix; protocol/session contracts; replication budget; backend data ownership map; network test pack; capacity/region plan; compatibility and rollback runbook.
References
- Multiplayer authority and session gates
1---2name: online-multiplayer-and-game-backend3description: Use when designing or implementing authoritative multiplayer topology, replication, RPCs, prediction, reconciliation, matchmaking, sessions, reconnect, game backend persistence, regional hosting, protocol evolution, or network tests.4---5# Online Multiplayer and Game Backend67Make authority, replicated state, session transitions, persistence, and degraded network behaviour explicit and testable.89## Use When10- A game has remote players, lobbies, matchmaking, dedicated/listen servers, replicated actors/state, or backend-owned progression.1112## Do Not Use When13- The request is local multiplayer only.14- Anti-cheat, moderation, or infrastructure deployment is the main task; compose with their specialist skills.1516## Required Inputs17Engine/version, player/region/load envelope, topology, trust boundaries, tick/update budgets, gameplay state model, matchmaking rules, persistence ownership, privacy/security constraints, service objectives, cost limits, and version policy.1819## Workflow201. Choose topology from threat, fairness, latency, cost, and operational evidence; name the authority for every mutable field.212. Specify session states from discovery through allocation, join, play, disconnect, reconnect, migration/termination, and cleanup.223. Define replicated state, relevance/frequency, RPC direction/reliability/idempotency, prediction/reconciliation, and late-join snapshots.234. Separate ephemeral match state from durable profile/economy state; make retries and ownership transfers safe.245. Version protocol and content contracts; test compatible skew and reject incompatible clients with a recoverable message.256. Exercise latency, loss, jitter, reorder, duplication, disconnect, reconnect, server crash, region loss, overload, and malicious input.2627## Quality Standards28- The server validates consequential actions; a client request is never proof that an action was legal.29- Reliable delivery is used only for state that must arrive; queues must be bounded.30- Tests retain seed, build/protocol version, topology, network profile, server logs, and outcome.3132## Outputs33Authority matrix; protocol/session contracts; replication budget; backend data ownership map; network test pack; capacity/region plan; compatibility and rollback runbook.3435## References36- [Multiplayer authority and session gates](references/multiplayer-authority-session-gates.md)37
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