Run your Unreal Engine dedicated server on Amazon GameLift from Blueprints and C++: process lifecycle, game and player sessions, FlexMatch backfill, health checks and fleet role credentials, with the Amazon GameLift Server SDK included.
Long Description:
GameLiftHost is the server side of Amazon GameLift for Unreal Engine. Add it to your project, package a Win64 or Linux dedicated server, and the server reports itself ready, receives game sessions, validates joining players and shuts down cleanly when Amazon GameLift asks it to - on managed EC2 fleets, container fleets and Anywhere fleets.
Turn on Auto Init SDK and Auto Process Ready and there is nothing to wire: as soon as the server world listens, the plugin connects to Amazon GameLift and reports the port the server really listens on, and the engine log file is uploaded when the process ends. Prefer full control? Init SDK, Process Ready, Activate Game Session, Process Ending and Destroy SDK are all Blueprint nodes.
On Start Game Session delivers everything about the match: id, name, fleet, maximum players, IP address, DNS name, port, game properties and FlexMatch matchmaker data. Players are validated with Validate Player From Options from Game Mode Pre Login, or automatically for Blueprint-only projects: the plugin reads the PlayerSessionId from the join URL, accepts it, kicks players without a valid session and frees their slot when they leave.
Start Match Backfill and Stop Match Backfill keep FlexMatch games full, with the results in On Update Game Session. On Health Check is answered instantly with the last Set Health Status value, so a busy game thread never makes a healthy server look dead, and On Process Terminate gives you the termination time to end the match gracefully. Get Fleet Role Credentials returns temporary AWS keys of an IAM role so the server can call other AWS services, and Get Compute Certificate returns the fleet's TLS certificate.
For Anywhere testing on your own PC, pass the WebSocket URL, auth token, fleet id and host id on the command line, or play in the editor with a Play In Editor dedicated server. The plugin compiles in every Win64 and Linux target but loads the SDK only in dedicated servers, so your game client ships with the same project untouched.
GameLiftHost is part of the Alpha XP AWS collection for Unreal Engine 4.27 and 5.8. It includes the Amazon GameLift Server SDK for C++ 5.6.1 prebuilt for Win64 and Linux, ships with styled HTML documentation, and is compiled warning-free against clean UE 4.27 and UE 5.8 projects.
Key Features:
- Init SDK for managed EC2 / container fleets (environment) and Anywhere fleets (parameters, command line or settings)
- Process Ready with automatic listen-port detection and log upload (engine log by default)
- On Start Game Session: id, name, fleet id, max players, IP, DNS, port, game properties, matchmaker data JSON
- Activate Game Session, Update Player Session Creation Policy, Get Game Session Id, Get Current Game Session
- Accept / Remove Player Session and Validate Player From Options for Game Mode Pre Login
- Auto Validate Players for Blueprint-only projects: accept after login, kick invalid players, remove on logout
- FlexMatch: Start Match Backfill, Stop Match Backfill, On Update Game Session
- On Health Check answered instantly from Set Health Status; On Process Terminate with termination time
- Process Ending with optional engine exit; automatic Process Ending on shutdown
- Get Fleet Role Credentials and Get Compute Certificate as latent nodes
- Describe Player Sessions with paging and status filter
- SDK callbacks delivered on the game thread; slow calls run on background threads
- C++ API on the subsystem with native callbacks
Full documentation: https://demo.alphaxp.net/FabStore/AWS/GameLiftHost/
Support: https://alphaxp.net/