The Evolution of Deterministic Multiplayer: Photon Quantum now a Unity Verified Solution
At Photon, we’re dedicated to providing the best netcode possible. In multiplayer game development, achieving deterministic gameplay has long been a holy grail, challenging even the most experienced developers. After nearly a decade of relentless innovation, Photon Quantum has emerged as the leading deterministic game engine for both multiplayer and single-player Unity games. With the release of Photon Quantum 3 as a Unity Verified Solution, this powerful engine is now accessible to Unity developers worldwide.
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Why Photon Quantum?
Photon Quantum isn’t just another game engine—it’s the only one offering multiplayer Input/Physics Prediction and Rollback, setting a new standard for game development. This technology excels on mobile devices and provides the best solution for high-latency environments, ensuring smooth and responsive gameplay across all platforms.
Quantum’s decoupled simulation framework is designed with performance in mind, allowing for the most efficient processing of complex interactions and large numbers of entities. This frees up more CPU resources for rendering, making Quantum ideal for competitive multiplayer games where performance, precision, and scalability are critical.
Core Features of Photon Quantum
No Netcode Game Engine: Unlike traditional multiplayer engines that rely on state synchronization, Quantum clients advance the simulation locally using input prediction. An advanced rollback system corrects any mispredictions, ensuring that clients with poor network conditions do not affect the overall gaming experience. This approach also allows the same simulation code to be used for both single-player and multiplayer games.
High-Performance by Default: Quantum’s simulation runs independently of the frame rate, efficiently processing complex interactions and large numbers of entities. This design frees up more resources for rendering, making Quantum the ideal choice for competitive multiplayer games.
Cheat Protection & E-Sport Ready: Quantum’s deterministic engine ensures that all clients run identical, server-validated game logic, leaving no room for tampering. This guarantees a secure and fair environment, making Quantum a perfect fit for competitive esports titles.
Deterministic Game Engine: Photon Quantum offers deterministic physics, math operations, and pathfinding, ensuring consistent and synchronized behavior across all clients. This consistency is crucial for reliable and high-performance multiplayer experiences.
A Complete Solution for Multiplayer Game Development
Photon Quantum is more than just a game engine—it’s a comprehensive toolset. Free for up to 100 concurrent users (CCU), it offers a full range of stateless deterministic libraries (Math, 2D/3D Physics, Navigation, etc.), a state-of-the-art Kinematic Character Controller (KCC), a complete Bots SDK, and loads of samples and clear documentation.
For multiplayer games, Photon Quantum is powered by the battle-tested Photon Cloud, which supports 1.4 billion monthly players worldwide, removing the need for developers to worry about server hosting.
Quantum’s Rich Unity Integration
Photon Quantum’s deep integration with Unity includes a Performance Profiler for real-time game performance analysis, covering simulation efficiency and network usage. The Quantum Hub centralizes tools for easy project management, while CodeDoc Inspectors ensure clarity in generated code. The Data-Driven System Setup simplifies system configuration, and Entity View provides detailed visualization of entity states—all designed to streamline the development and optimization of multiplayer games.
Explore Quantum with Our Sample Projects
To help you get started, Photon Quantum offers a variety of sample projects that demonstrate its power and versatility:
- Blueless (2D platformer mechanics)
- Twin-stick-shooter (twin-stick controls and AI)
- QBall (sports mechanics with smooth multiplayer sync)
- Karts (racing physics and player interactions)
- Racer 2.5D (racing in a 2.5D environment)
- Motor Dome (vehicular combat)
- Quantum XR (extended reality integration)
- Bots (AI-driven gameplay)
These samples are regularly updated to the latest version of Quantum, ensuring that you always have the most up-to-date resources at your disposal.
Start Your Journey with Photon Quantum
Photon Quantum is now a Unity Verified Solution, and there’s never been a better time to start developing with it. Whether you’re building a single-player game or the next big esports title, Quantum provides the most powerful and flexible gameplay foundation available.
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Start your journey with Photon Quantum today and experience the future of deterministic multiplayer game development.
A Journey a Decade in the Making
Photon Quantum’s journey began in 2015 with the release of Photon TrueSync, an ambitious attempt to bring deterministic multiplayer to life. While groundbreaking, TrueSync wasn’t the perfect solution, and the team at Photon quickly recognized the need for a new approach. In 2017, the first version of Photon Quantum was born, built on a high-performance deterministic Entity Component System (ECS). This marked a significant leap forward in creating a truly deterministic multiplayer engine.
Now, with the release of Quantum 3, Photon Quantum stands as the most performant and reliable solution for developing multiplayer games in Unity. This version is not just an incremental update; it’s the culmination of years of iteration, testing, and refinement.
GET STARTED WITH PHOTON QUANTUM
