Peer-to-Peer Networking & Multiplayer

What if you could connect multiple devices directly, without the need for a server?

What if every device in the room could automatically discover every other device and become part of the same network?

The P2P Plugin makes this easy. Start multiple Unity applications on the same local network, let them automatically discover and connect to each other, and then distribute data, objects, and interactions between them.

No dedicated server. No relay. No host. No Internet connection required.

What Can You Build?

• Lobby and Peer Discovery — Discover other players or applications on the local network and allow users to select one or more peers for a game or shared experience.

• Shared Multiplayer Worlds — Let everyone on the network participate in the same 2D, 3D, AR, or VR world, sharing player positioning, object state, actions, and interactions.

• Shared AR and Spatial Experiences — Connect phones, tablets, headsets, or glasses in the same physical environment and share positions, tracked objects, selections, annotations, and interactions.

• Multi-Device Applications — Give different devices different roles. A tablet might provide controls, a desktop might display an overview, an AR headset might visualize information, and another device might supply data.

• Collaborative Applications — Build shared design, visualization, training, simulation, education, presentation, or other interactive experiences where changes made by one participant can be seen by the others.

• Distributed Sensors and Data Sources — Treat phones, cameras, sensors, computers, or specialized hardware as peers that publish information for other Unity applications to consume and visualize.

• Simple Device-to-Device Interaction — Sometimes the requirement is simply two or more devices that should find each other and interact without requiring a server.

• Server Discovery and Host Migration — Use automatic peer discovery alongside traditional networking architectures to discover a local server or determine which peer should act as the host, without requiring users to enter IP addresses or ports.

Designed to Work with Your Application

The P2P Plugin handles peer discovery, connectivity, and the distributed-object infrastructure. Your application defines what data, objects, and interactions are distributed and which peers receive them.

Distributed state can be associated directly with Unity GameObjects or represented by independent C# objects. Interactions can use synchronized state, remote method calls, or a combination of both.

The plugin can be used as the networking foundation for a local peer-to-peer application or alongside existing technologies such as client/server networking, WebRTC, and cloud services.

Peer-to-peer networking can become complicated quickly. The P2P Plugin provides the infrastructure so you can start building distributed Unity applications without first having to build the peer-to-peer network yourself.