BOLT
Client-hosted Networking for Unity that Always Connects Your Players
Photon Fusion – The Evolutionary Leap of Pun & Bolt.
Got a new multiplayer project? While your existing PUN & Bolt projects will continue to run, Fusion's features and performance set the new benchmark for state-sync multiplayer engines.Time to switch to Fusion
Photon Fusion – The Evolutionary Leap of Pun & Bolt.
Got a new multiplayer project? While your existing PUN & Bolt projects will continue to run, Fusion's features and performance set the new benchmark for state-sync multiplayer engines.Time to switch to Fusion
Perfect for FPS/TPS, Action Games
or Battle Royale
Build multiplayer games with a dedicated server architecture for Unity.
Find everything to build the next PUBG or Fortnite.
Unparalleled Features
You Won‘t Find Anywhere Else
Authoritative
Movement
BOLT offers truly unique support for authoritative games: Authoritative movement with client-side prediction and lag compensated ray-casting are both built in. A feature that no other product on the market is offering.
Authoritative
Movement
Authoritative
Movement
BOLT offers truly unique support for authoritative games: Authoritative movement with client-side prediction and lag compensated ray-casting are both built in. A feature that no other product on the market is offering.
Powerful
Event System
Bolt has a built-in event system which distributes the event to the correct receivers. Highly configurable and automatically, of course. Events can also be targeted at a specific game object or raised globally. Finetune delivery of events in three modes: Unreliable, Unreliable Synced and Reliable.
Powerful
Event System
Powerful
Event System
Bolt has a built-in event system which distributes the event to the correct receivers. Highly configurable and automatically, of course. Events can also be targeted at a specific game object or raised globally. Finetune delivery of events in three modes: Unreliable, Unreliable Synced and Reliable.
State Replication
State Replication
Replicate game object transforms and user-definable properties automatically without the need for any code. Everything is neatly accessible through a visual editor which lets you define and customize properties at a detailed level.
Mecanim Replication
Mecanim Replication
Mecanim animations replicate automatically over the network. Find all your character animations perfectly synchronized without any custom code being required.
Prioritization and Scoping
Prioritization and Scoping
Bolt supports both scoping of entities (which entities should a player be aware of) and prioritization of scoped entities (of two entities A and B that are scoped, which one is the most important for a player).
Lag Compensation / Hitbox Recording
Lag Compensation / Hitbox Recording
Bolt has built-in support for recording hitboxes and rewinding and ray-casting against them, allowing you to implement complex techniques like lag compensation in first person shooters with just a few lines of code.
Dedicated Server & Listen Server
Dedicated Server & Listen Server
Bolt supports the classic DEDICATED SERVER and LISTEN SERVER where the server is just another player. Session discovery allows your game to automatically find servers running on a local LAN or WiFi.
Networked Scene Loading
Networked Scene Loading
Networked scene-loading gives you an easy way to load scenes in Unity over the network and assures that you know when all players are loaded into the map.
Cloud Matchmaking
Cloud Matchmaking
Match players into games randomly or by parameterized searches. Create a list of open rooms and let players pick one.
Cloud Relay
Cloud Relay
No player will be left behind with Bolt's Cloud Relay.Whenever a game client cannot connect directly, the connection will be established seamlessly via the Cloud Relay. Guaranteed.
Direct IP Connection &
Server Orchestration
Direct IP Connection &
Server Orchestration
Bolt Pro additionally provides features such as direct
IP connections, server orchestration via Zeuz.io - or any
other provider - and special licenses for offline
installs, e.g. in arcades or casinos.
BOLT is the State-of-the-Art
Networking Solution for Unity
Build FPS, TPS and Action Games as
Dedicated Server Games.
Supported Platforms
The Perfect Engine for
Authoritative Server Games
FPS/TPS
Authoritative TPS/FPS
are the core target for BOLT.
Needs to be combined with an orchestration solution like Gamelift or Multiplay.
Battle Royale
Up to 40-50 players
this is out of the box.
Large player #s (> 50) are a challenge and require special skills with scoping.
Action Games
Authoritative action games
where the Unity Engine needs to
be available in the host.
It is worth to consider other architectures/approaches that make Unity on the server obsolete.
BOLT was inspired by several influential papers that has been written about online multiplayer (you can find a link to the papers in our documentation).
- Tribes Networking
- Halo Reach Networking
- Source Engine Multiplayer Networking
Support of Four Main
Scenarios & Architectures
Support of Four Main
Scenarios & Architectures
DedicatedServer
The server is dedicated and has a public IP (less connection problems with best security options).
- Photon Cloud does not offer to host Unity Instances. Possible solutions are Gamelift (by Amazon), Multiplay (by Unity) or custom solutions.
- Uses Unity on the server, potential stability / memory / CPU issues.
- Best practice for Fortnite, Halo, …
Listen Server
or Client Hosted
One of the clients hosts the game, to minimize operational costs. Has its Pros and Cons.
- QoS may be a challenge: Host may drop-out (host migration)
- Relayed clients have a 4 hops (client-relay-host => host-relay-client)
- Professional solution is a dedicated server.
Two Player
Peer-2-Peer
Direct (p2p) connection with NAT punchthrough and a relay as fallback.
- No host migration necessary. The game ends when one player drops.
- Client cheat detection needed.
Local LAN / Wifi
A Listen Server for a LAN / Wifi with automatic host detection.
- Punch works.
- Local connection = very low latency
- Simple matchmaking
TOP RATING IN THE ASSET STORE
- I got off to a rocky start with BOLT but after getting it working, I have to say BOLT is one of the smartest packages I have ever used.
- BOLT does a great job in balancing ease of use with efficiency.
- BOLT has saved us many hours and lots of money providing us with the ability to do authoritative servers, lag compensation, client side prediction and many other things!
- Don’t waste your time, take a look, try it and you`ll never let it go ...
- BOLT is hands down THE BEST networking tool you can use. End of review.
- Works as described. Excellent support.