What is shutting down on March 31, 2026?

Only the dedicated server fleet hosting layer — Unity Multiplay Game Server Hosting — is being discontinued. Unity Matchmaker, Relay, Lobby, and Distributed Authority are unaffected and will continue operating. Unity is licensing the Multiplay software to Rocket Science Group, a company founded by Multiplay veterans, who will continue offering it as a standalone service.

Will Unity Matchmaker still work after March 31?

Yes. Unity Matchmaker is unaffected by the Multiplay shutdown. Additionally, Unity has updated Matchmaker to support third-party hosting providers — including Gameye, Edgegap, and Multiplay by Rocket Science — in advance of the March 31st deadline. Your matchmaking logic stays intact; only the server allocation backend changes.

How much work is migrating away from Unity Multiplay?

The scope depends on how deeply you use Multiplay's fleet management features. At minimum, you're replacing the host allocation API calls and removing the Multiplay SDK. With Gameye, there is no replacement SDK — your server binary runs as-is in a Docker container with no Gameye-specific code. Your authoritative game server code, networking model, and client connection flow are unchanged. Studios have completed migrations to Gameye in under two weeks with parallel testing.

Can I keep using Unity Matchmaker if I switch to Gameye?

Yes. Gameye works alongside Unity Matchmaker. When a match is found, Matchmaker triggers a session allocation through Gameye's API instead of Multiplay's fleet. Your matchmaking rules, player grouping, and ticket logic stay unchanged.

What does Gameye cost compared to Unity Multiplay?

Gameye charges $0.07 per vCPU per hour with no egress fees and no per-GB bandwidth charges. Unity Multiplay billed per server-hour with additional bandwidth costs. Most studios migrating to Gameye see a meaningful cost reduction once bandwidth charges are removed from the calculation.

How much does Unity Multiplay cost compared to AWS GameLift?

Both billed compute and bandwidth separately, so the egress line scaled with player count. AWS has since made bandwidth free on managed GameLift gen-6+ instances (gen-5/older, China, and self-hosted EC2 still pay ~$0.09/GB); Unity Multiplay's rates were sales-gated. Gameye, the no-egress alternative studios move to, charges one published rate — $0.07/vCPU/hr ($0.027 reserved) — with no separate bandwidth charge on any provider or region, roughly $5–13 per hour for a 3,000-player load.

How fast can I get a Gameye sandbox running?

Gameye's trial is self-serve. You need a Docker image of your game server, an API token, and a target region. The Session API is a single HTTP endpoint — you can make your first allocation call the same day you get access.

Unity Multiplay Migration

Unity Multiplay migration: where to go and how to move

Q: How much did Unity Multiplay cost?

Unity Multiplay billed on a per-server-hour model for compute, with bandwidth (egress) charged separately on top, so the bill grew with both server uptime and player traffic. Gameye replaces it with one published rate: $0.07/vCPU/hr, egress included.

Multiplay's dedicated server fleet is gone; Matchmaker, Relay, and Lobby continue. Here's the migration path off Unity Multiplay — your options, the four technical steps, and why most studios moved to a managed replacement.

Shut down: March 31, 2026 8 min read

Updated July 1, 2026

TL;DR

Unity Multiplay Game Server Hosting shut down March 31, 2026. Unity Matchmaker, Relay, Lobby, and Distributed Authority are unaffected.
Three main options: Rocket Science Group (Multiplay continuation, least change), Edgegap (Unity plugin, self-serve), Gameye (no SDK required, $0.07/vCPU/hr, no egress, self-serve trial).
Migration scope: Replace the server hosting layer. Your game logic, networking, matchmaking rules, and client connection flow don't change.

On December 4th, 2025, Unity announced that Multiplay Game Server Hosting — the dedicated server fleet orchestration layer — shut down on March 31, 2026. Unity wound down internal operations and licensed the underlying software to Rocket Science Group, a company founded by veterans of the original Multiplay team.

The most important thing to understand is what did not shut down: Unity Matchmaker, Relay, Lobby, and Distributed Authority are all unaffected. Unity has also updated Matchmaker to support third-party hosting providers before the deadline, so your matchmaking logic doesn't have to change — only where your servers actually run.

Shut down March 31

Multiplay Game Server Hosting
Unity fleet management dashboard
Multiplay server SDK (IMultiplayService)
Built-in Multiplay features in Unity 6.0+ LTS

Continuing as normal

Unity Matchmaker (now supports third-party providers)
Unity Relay
Unity Lobby
Distributed Authority
Netcode for GameObjects
Unity Gaming Services dashboard

What are your options now?

Multiplay by Rocket Science Group

Least change — same service, new owner

Rocket Science was founded by the original Multiplay engineering team. Their plan is a direct continuation: existing customers keep their servers, and the service launches officially in late Q1 2026 with SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001 certifications. "Your servers stay online. Nothing changes today" is how they've described the transition. In practice, Rocket Science has migrated a small number of studios so far — most Multiplay customers are still looking for a path forward.

Best for: Live games that can't tolerate a migration window and studios that heavily rely on Multiplay-specific fleet features. You're trading ownership of the relationship from Unity to a smaller, specialist company.

Watch out for: Rocket Science hasn't published pricing. If you want cost predictability or to reduce infrastructure risk, this option replaces Unity dependency with a new vendor dependency.

Edgegap

Unity plugin, 615+ locations, just-in-time deployment

Edgegap has a dedicated Unity plugin and documented migration path from Multiplay. Their architecture is just-in-time: servers only spin up when a session is requested, which can significantly reduce idle compute costs. They operate 615+ locations worldwide with a single global pricing model.

Best for: Studios that want to stay in the Unity ecosystem tooling and want a large edge network. Edgegap has done the work to document the Unity → Edgegap migration path explicitly.

Watch out for: More infrastructure to understand and configure. Their pay-per-second model is good if your sessions are well-bounded; less predictable for games with variable session lengths.

Gameye

Provider-agnostic, $0.07/vCPU/hr, no egress fees

Gameye is a dedicated server orchestration platform that predates Unity's game server entry — in production since 2017, 130M+ sessions orchestrated. Gameye runs your Docker containers across a global network of bare metal and cloud providers. It's API-driven: a single HTTP call starts a session, and Unity Matchmaker routes to it. No Gameye SDK is required in your server binary — you remove the Multiplay SDK and don't replace it with anything. You're not replacing Unity's ecosystem, just the server hosting layer underneath it.

Best for: Studios that want predictable pricing, provider-agnostic infrastructure, and sub-second session allocation. Gameye works alongside Unity Matchmaker with no connector required.

Self-serve trial — no sales call required to start testing.

Step-by-step migration checklist →

How do the options compare side by side?

	Rocket Science (Multiplay)	Edgegap	Gameye
Migration effort	Minimal — same service	Low — Unity plugin	Low — API swap
Server-side SDK required	Multiplay SDK (carried over)	Edgegap SDK (optional)	None
Works with Unity Matchmaker	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pricing model	TBD (not published)	Pay-per-second, transparent	$0.07/vCPU/hr, no egress
Egress / bandwidth fees	Unknown	Varies	None — included
Provider-agnostic	No — single operator	Edge network (own infra)	Yes — bare metal + cloud
Session start time	Fleet-based, minutes warm-up	Just-in-time, sub-second	~0.5s average
Trial access	Contact required	Self-service	Self-serve
Games-only platform	Yes	No — broader edge	Yes — Founded in 2017, 130M+ sessions orchestrated

How much does Unity Multiplay cost vs. AWS GameLift?

Both Unity Multiplay and AWS GameLift billed you twice — for compute and for bandwidth — so the egress line grew with every player you added. Multiplay's rates were sales-gated; GameLift's run roughly $45–100 per hour at 3,000 concurrent players, most of it data-transfer fees. If you're weighing the two to replace Multiplay, the cost question has a third answer: Gameye charges one published rate — $0.07/vCPU/hr — with no egress fees at all.

	Unity Multiplay	AWS GameLift	Gameye
Pricing model	Per-server-hour, sales-gated	EC2 compute + data transfer	$0.07/vCPU/hr, published
Compute	Per-server-hour	EC2 instance rates	$0.07/vCPU/hr · $0.027 reserved
Bandwidth / egress	Charged separately	~$0.09/GB	None — included
Cost at 3,000 concurrent players	Compute + bandwidth (never published)	~$45–100 / hour (mostly egress)	~$5–13 / hour, no egress
Pricing transparency	Sales-gated	Complex, variable	Public rate

The pattern is identical on both platforms you're comparing: bandwidth is the line that scales with your success, and on either one it commonly runs 40–60% of the bill at scale. Gameye removes that line entirely — you pay for compute, not traffic. See the full GameLift cost breakdown at 3,000 CCU, or model your own player counts against all three.

What changes in your codebase when you migrate?

Regardless of which provider you choose, the technical surface of the migration is the same. Here's what you're replacing:

Server-side SDK

Remove the Multiplay SDK initialization (IMultiplayService) from your dedicated server build. With Gameye, there is no replacement SDK — Gameye requires no code in your game server binary. Your server just needs to listen on the port provided in the session metadata. Other providers may require their own SDK integration.

Host allocation call

Wherever your code requests a server from Multiplay's fleet, replace that call with your new provider's session creation endpoint. For Gameye, this is a single POST request to the Session API with your image name, region, and any session metadata.

Fleet configuration

Multiplay's fleet concept (regions, scaling profiles, server profiles) maps to equivalent configuration in your new provider. This is a one-time setup step, not an ongoing code change.

Docker packaging (if not already)

Both Gameye and Edgegap run your server in a Docker container. If you're not already building your dedicated server as a Docker image, this is the main new engineering step. Unity's Dedicated Server build target produces the binary; Docker wraps it for reproducible deployment.

✓

What doesn't change: Your authoritative server logic, networking model (Netcode for GameObjects or otherwise), client connection flow, matchmaking rules, Relay sessions, Lobby structure, and player-facing behaviour. The migration scope is the infrastructure layer — not your game.

Why do studios migrating from Multiplay choose Gameye?

No egress fees

Multiplay charged for bandwidth. Gameye doesn't. $0.07/vCPU/hr is the entire compute bill — no per-GB charges on top. For studios running high-traffic sessions, this is often where the biggest savings come from. Model your own numbers →

Sub-second allocation

Gameye spins up a session in ~0.5 seconds on average. Players don't wait between "match found" and "server ready." No fleet warm-up, no cold-start delays.

Provider-agnostic

Gameye orchestrates across bare metal and multiple cloud providers. If one region or provider has an incident, sessions fail over automatically. You're not replacing Unity lock-in with Gameye lock-in — your server image can run anywhere Gameye schedules it.

Works with Unity Matchmaker

Unity has already updated Matchmaker to support third-party providers. Gameye plugs into your existing Unity Matchmaker configuration — you keep your matchmaking logic, tickets, and rules exactly as they are.

Gradual rollout

Because Gameye is API-driven and provider-agnostic, you can run Multiplay and Gameye in parallel by region or game mode while validating performance and costs. No hard cutover required.

Live today

You can have sessions running and validated today. Gameye's trial is self-serve — no sales conversation required.

Frequently asked questions

Does Unity 6.3 LTS affect anything beyond server hosting?

Unity 6.3 LTS will remove the built-in Multiplay features from the engine. This primarily affects the Multiplay SDK integration in the Unity editor and Dedicated Server build tooling that was tightly coupled to Multiplay's fleet. Core networking (Netcode for GameObjects), Relay, Lobby, and Matchmaker are separate packages unaffected by this change.

Is Rocket Science Group's Multiplay a safe bet long-term?

Rocket Science was founded by the original Multiplay team, which is a genuine signal. They understand the service deeply. The risk factors to consider: they haven't published pricing, they're a newer standalone company rather than a division of a larger organization, and their long-term roadmap isn't public. For studios that want to keep maximum continuity and accept that trade-off, it's a reasonable path. For studios that want infrastructure they control or diversify across, Gameye or Edgegap give you that.

Can I use Gameye without a matchmaker — just on-demand sessions?

Yes. Gameye's Session API is just an HTTP endpoint. Any system that can make an HTTP request can trigger a session — a custom backend, a serverless function, a client-side request (with appropriate auth), or a Unity Matchmaker ticket. You don't need a specific matchmaker to use Gameye.

How does Gameye handle server warm-up compared to Multiplay fleets?

Multiplay used fleet-based orchestration: you pre-allocated server capacity and servers could sit idle waiting for sessions, with cold-start times reported as high as 15–16 minutes when fleet capacity wasn't pre-warmed. Gameye allocates on-demand in ~0.5 seconds using pre-built container images scheduled across available infrastructure. There's no fleet to warm up — you pay for sessions when they run, not for reserved capacity.

What if I'm using Unity Relay for peer-to-peer sessions, not dedicated servers?

Unity Relay is unaffected by the Multiplay shutdown and continues as normal. Relay-based sessions (peer-to-peer with relay fallback) don't use Multiplay's fleet at all — no migration needed for that part of your stack. Only dedicated server sessions that allocate through Multiplay's fleet management are affected.

How much did Unity Multiplay cost?

Unity Multiplay Game Server Hosting billed on a per-server-hour model for compute, with bandwidth (egress) charged separately on top — so your bill grew with both server uptime and player traffic, and there was no simple flat published rate. Gameye replaces that with one published rate: $0.07/vCPU/hr, egress included. Model your own numbers →

Did Unity Multiplay charge for bandwidth?

Yes. Multiplay charged bandwidth (egress) on top of per-server-hour compute, so data transfer was a separate line item that scaled with traffic — often a major part of the bill for high-traffic games. Gameye includes all bandwidth in its $0.07/vCPU/hr rate, with no separate egress charge.

Multiplay shut down March 31, 2026

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