When creating a multiplayer game that supports different game modes (Battle Royale, Elimination, etc.) and that has multiple different “lobbies” of these game modes running at the same time, do I need a separate server for each “lobby” running a single map at a time? Or can servers handle more than one lobby and game mode?
One server process runs one game instance at a time.
One game instance runs one lobby, or one active game (mode.)
So, yes, if you have different players playing different games at the same time, and some players being in a lobby while other players are playing games, then you need multiple server processes.
How you map server processes to physical hardware, depends entirely on how you choose to host the games. Could be containers on Linux with a DNAT gateway in front. Could be “root servers” running Windows, with one public IP per machine. This is one of those things where there’s no “one true way” – it depends on your goal, and budget.
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Thanks, you fully answered my question. 