Multiplayer Architecture Design

Hello everyone,

I have a question regarding how servers are set up for multiplayer games, where you connect to a common lobby and then travel to a map to play on. For example take fortnite you open the game it gets information from the server about your profile and loads that in for you. You then can squad up and see others and when you are ready to play it matches you with others and you are good to go. It all sounds simple, but after watching networking examples and tutorials I am not any wiser how I would go about creating a similar mechanic. So maybe in my ignorance I am just looking at this the wrong way and someone could help me in the right direction.

What confuses me, is that I feel like I need a server that loads my player info from the server and then connects me to a different server where the match would run on. I can see how this would run on one giant server with one IP but then how do I load in maps for specific people and how do I handle 1000s of players potentially connected to the lobby. The game I want to create would be nothing fancy with small 3-10 person mobile multiplayer sessions. What is confusing me is how to connect so many people and send them to the right game maps etc. A better analogy of what I want to achieve is a multiplayer architecture similar to Brawlstars. If anyone could give me pointers of how to approach this the right way I would be very thankful.

What you are talking about is matchmaking servers. It can add them to a queue based on any number of search criteria. When a match is found the matched players get an IP and they start joining that server. You should learn more about matchmaking and perhaps buy an existing matchmaking service.