Get Amazon GameLift Servers development tools - Amazon GameLift Servers
For game serversFor game client servicesFor resource managementFor Amazon GameLift Servers Realtime
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Get Amazon GameLift Servers development tools

Amazon GameLift Servers provides a set of SDKs and other tools to help you build game hosting solutions for your games. The SDKs add functionality to game servers, game clients, and backend services that enables them to interact with the Amazon GameLift Servers service. For the latest information about Amazon GameLift Servers SDK versions and compatibility, see Amazon GameLift Servers release notes.

For game servers

Integrate and build your 64-bit game servers with the server SDK for Amazon GameLift Servers. The game server uses the server SDK to communicate with the Amazon GameLift Servers service for game session management, including starting, updating, and stopping game sessions. For help with integrating the server SDK into your game projects, see Preparing games for Amazon GameLift Servers.

Development support

Get the Server SDK for Amazon GameLift Servers. For version-specific information and install instructions, see the included readme files in each package.

  • Runtime support

    For a managed hosting solution, build your game server to run on one of the following Amazon machine images (AMIs). See Amazon GameLift Servers AMI versions for Amazon GameLift Servers for more details.

    Note

    Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) will reach end of support on June 30, 2025. See more details in the Amazon Linux 2 FAQs. For game servers that are hosted on AL2 and use Amazon GameLift Servers server SDK 4.x., first update the game server build to server SDK 5.x, and then deploy to AL2023 instances. See .

Game engine support

A full-featured plugin for Amazon GameLift Servers includes detailed GUI workflows and sample assets, as well as built-in versions of the Amazon SDK and server SDK. The GUI workflows guide you through how to configure and deploy your game server for hosting with managed EC2 fleets, managed container fleets, or self-managed Anywhere fleets. If you're using another game engine or development environment that the plugin doesn't support, get the server SDK for your programming language and add it to your game project.

Get the plugins for Amazon GameLift Servers. For version-specific information and install instructions, see the included readme files in each package.

  • Plugin for Unity – The plugin includes server SDK (C#) for Amazon GameLift Servers. Use the plugin with LTS versions of Unity Editor 2021.3. It supports Unity's .NET Framework and .NET Standard profiles, with .NET Standard 2.1 and .NET 4.x. Check the readme in the server SDK download package for specific Unity version support.

    • C# server SDK reference

For game client services

Create a 64-bit backend service for your game clients using the Amazon SDK, which includes the service API for Amazon GameLift Servers. Your game's backend service handles client-side interactions with the Amazon GameLift Servers service, including starting new game sessions and joining players to games.

Get the Amazon SDK

For more information about using the Amazon SDK with Amazon GameLift Servers, see the following resources:

For Amazon GameLift Servers resource management

Use the following tools to create, update, and monitor your Amazon GameLift Servers managed hosting resources.

  • Amazon Web Services Management Console – The Amazon Console is a web-based application that provides centralized access to all individual Amazon service consoles, including Amazon GameLift Servers. Use the Console to create or sign into an Amazon account and open the Amazon GameLift Servers console to work with your game hosting resources. You can configure and deploy hosting fleets and other resources, view usage and performance metrics, track resourses in the dashboard, and many other tasks. Go to the Amazon GameLift Servers console.

  • Service API for Amazon GameLift Servers – This API gives you programmatic access to all of your Amazon GameLift Servers resources. It is part of the Amazon SDK, which you can download for use with most popular programming languages. Get the Amazon SDK.

  • Amazon command line interface (CLI) – The Amazon CLI lets you interact with Amazon services using a command-line shell. The tools provides direct access to the public APIs for Amazon services as well as customized commands that are available for a service. Get the Amazon CLI.

  • Amazon CloudFormation for Amazon GameLift Servers – The Amazon CloudFormation service helps you model and set up Amazon resources to streamline infrastructure deployment and management. Create an Amazon CloudFormation template to describe the Amazon GameLift Servers resources for your hosting solution, and then use the template to build additional resources or update configurations. View the Amazon GameLift Servers resource type reference.

For Amazon GameLift Servers Realtime

Configure and deploy Realtime servers to host your multiplayer games. To allow your game clients to connect to Realtime servers, use the Amazon GameLift Servers Realtime client SDK. To get started, download the Realtime client SDK. For configuration information, see Integrating a game client for Amazon GameLift Servers Realtime.

SDK support

The Realtime Client SDK contains source for the following languages:

  • C# (.NET)

Development environments

Build the SDK from source as needed for the following supported development operating systems and game engines:

  • Operating systems – Windows, Linux, Android, iOS

  • Game engines – Unity, engines that support C# libraries

Game server operating systems

You can deploy Realtime servers onto hosting resources that run on the following platforms: