2D Multiplayer Battle Arena Game with Real-Time Netcode

A real-time multiplayer battle-arena game with client-side prediction and server reconciliation for lag-free combat.

In an online action game, every player's input takes time to reach the server, and the reply takes time to come back. Without care, the game feels sluggish, and cheating becomes easy if players are trusted to report their own results. Good netcode hides delay while staying fair. This project builds a 2D multiplayer battle arena with real-time networking that feels responsive.

The server is authoritative: it runs the true game state and validates every action, so a modified client cannot cheat. To keep control immediate, the client uses prediction, applying the player's own input at once and later reconciling it with the server's answer, smoothly correcting any difference. Other players are shown with interpolation, and lag compensation lets a shot that looked accurate on the shooter's screen be judged fairly. The game is built in Unity with C#, with Photon or WebSocket transport and a Node.js service for matchmaking, which pairs players by skill and region and manages lobbies. A replay system records the game state so that matches can be reviewed and bugs reproduced. The project measures latency, packet loss handling and server capacity.

You will learn network architecture, prediction and reconciliation, and real-time server design. The Project Reference Guide explains the algorithms with diagrams, and the Reference Implementation includes the game, server and test tools.