I’ve just finished my first game entirely in blueprints. I’m planning to add a multiplayer component. Is it possible to create online mobile multiplayer gameplay with UE4?
I’ve searched a lot. All I could find is multiplayer for steam or PC. Nothing about mobile. Few posts from 2016 suggested it’s outright not possible with UE4 cos smartphones don’t hold a consistent connection.
I want the players to be able to host a game on their phones and have someone join that game. Ludo King on the App Store and probably play store is able to do this same type of multiplayer gameplay.
I would like to know if the following is possible with blueprints with UE4…
Player clicks on play online and they’re connected to a random person on the internet.
Player clicks play with friends and a type of code is generated. Player then gives this code to their friend. Friend enters it in their game and they are both connected.
Online multiplayer is not platform specific, it can work on any platform and across platforms. You’ll need to do some research though on how to get it set up and what things you will need. To be able to connect players with each other you need some kind of server hosting which connects players with each other, or if you want to go further you can have servers hosting the actual multiplayer session which is preferred otherwise one the players would be the Host.
Is it possible to implement multiplayer without any external server hosting? Like one device creating a session and other device connecting to it? Can it be done with just the nodes available in UE4 without any plug-in like gamelift?
Also, the onlinesubsystem setting in the ini files… should that be set to NULL or IOS?
I read different forum posts with contradicting information.
I tried to make a mobile game with P2P multiplayer and the difficult parte is nat punching and IP finding in mobile devices. In theory EOS comes with a solution for for peer to peer but i don’t know to to implement it.
About subsystem, IOS subsystem, as far as i know, just add some functionalities for GameCenter, but it exclude multiplayer solution. You can check it on ue4 Git Source and see what does IOS subsystem implements from the interface and what doesnt in 4.27.
Without some kind of online service that connects players together then the only way to do online is to put in the IP address of the player you are trying to connect with. The server solves that problem because the game is already set up with what it needs to connect to the server and then it can connect players together from there.
