The Multiplayer Services package (com.unity.services.multiplayer) combines Sessions, Relay, Lobby, Matchmaker and Distributed Authority in one SDK. It connects players but doesn't synchronize your game. For that, you also need a netcode library such as Netcode for GameObjects or Netcode for Entities.
What’s included
- Sessions: create, join and leave groups of players with a single join code. Sessions sets up Lobby, Relay or Distributed Authority for you.
- Relay: connects players through Unity’s servers without exposing their IP addresses, for player-hosted games.
- Lobby: groups players before a game and stores lobby settings.
- Matchmaker: matches players into games based on rules you define.
- Distributed Authority: a network topology for Netcode for GameObjects where clients share ownership of objects through a Unity service, with one client acting as the session owner.
The standalone Lobby, Relay and Matchmaker packages are deprecated. To move from them, see Migrate to the Multiplayer Services SDK.
What’s not included
- Netcode: to synchronize your game, use Netcode for GameObjects or Netcode for Entities.
- Friends: service for managing player relationships and connections. See Friends.
- Voice and text chat: See Vivox.
- Game server hosting: Unity does not host game servers. To host dedicated servers, use a third-party hosting provider with Matchmaker through a Cloud Code allocator. See Matchmaker hosting providers.
For more information, see the Multiplayer Services documentation.