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
-
Development OS
-
Windows
-
Linux
-
-
Programming languages
Get the Amazon GameLift Servers SDK
. For version-specific information and install instructions, see the included readme files in each package. C# server SDK
(Support for .NET 4, .NET 6, .NET 8 varies by version, see SDK versions)
Game engine support
A full-featured plugin for Amazon GameLift Servers includes UI workflows and sample assets, as well as built-in versions of the AWS SDK and server SDK. The 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 don't need the guided workflows, you can also get just the server SDK for your game engine from the same GitHub repositoryes.
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.
For version-specific information and install instructions, see the included readme files in each package.
-
Plugin for Unreal Engine
– The plugin includes server SDK (C++) for Amazon GameLift Servers, built for use with Unreal versions 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5. Check the readme in the server SDK download package for specific Unity version support. -
Server SDK for UnityPlugin for Unity
– The plugin includes server SDK (C#) for Amazon GameLift Servers. Use the plugin with LTS versions of Unity Editor 6.0, 2022.3, or 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.
-
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
Additional tools
Game server wrapper for Amazon GameLift Servers
This tool helps you deploy a game server for hosting with a set of basic game session management functionality. With this tool, you don't need to make changes to your game code or integrate the server SDK for Amazon GameLift Servers. Use the game server wrapper to package your game server and deploy it for game hosting using any of the three Amazon GameLift Servers hosting solutions (Anywhere, managed EC2, or managed containers). This tool is best suited for early evaluation or prototyping with your own game or a sample game, as this tool doesn't support game server customization. If your game doesn't need custom features, you can deploy your game server with the game server wrapper for production hosting.
Amazon GameLift Servers Toolkit
The Amazon GameLift Servers Toolkit is a collection of scripts and other tools that we've developed to help developers with common scenarios and issues. Toolkit materials include scripts, sample code, and readmes.
-
Containers starter kit
– Use this tool to streamline the tasks of setting up game server builds for hosting with Amazon GameLift Servers managed containers. The kit integrates essential game session management features into a game server, and uses pre-configured templates to create a container fleet and set up an automated deployment pipeline for your game server build. After deployment, you can monitor fleet performance, manage game sessions, and analyze metrics using the Amazon GameLift Servers console and API tools. The kit integrates with AWS CodeBuild for build automation, Amazon Simple Storage Service for storage, and AWS CloudFormation for infrastructure deployment. -
Fast build update tool
– Use this tool to modify a game server build that's already deployed to a managed EC2 fleet. The tool is built to help you quickly swap out game build files without having to configure and create new EC2 fleets with every change. You can update individual instances or all instances in the fleet. Options let you replace specific build files or an entire build, and let you manage how to restart game servers after the updates.
For game client services
Create a 64-bit backend service for your game clients using the AWS 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.
For more information about using the AWS 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.
AWS Management Console – The AWS Console is a web-based application that provides centralized access to all individual AWS service consoles, including Amazon GameLift Servers. Use the Console to create or sign into an AWS 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 AWS SDK, which you can download for use with most popular programming languages. Get the AWS SDK.
AWS command line interface (CLI) – The AWS CLI lets you interact with AWS services using a command-line shell. The tools provides direct access to the public APIs for AWS services as well as customized commands that are available for a service. Get the AWS CLI.
-
AWS CloudFormation for Amazon GameLift Servers – The AWS CloudFormation service helps you model and set up AWS resources to streamline infrastructure deployment and management. Create an AWS 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
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:
-
Note
AL2 is nearing end of support. See more details in the Amazon Linux 2 FAQs
.
