Reviving a live multiplayer naval combat game
The challenge
A US studio's live multiplayer warship battler was dead in the water — stuck on Unreal Engine 4.19, four major versions behind, with rising server costs, compounding bugs, and no team left to fight for it.
The play
We ported the entire game from Unreal Engine 4.19 to 5.7, rebuilt the multiplayer backend on a hybrid Gameye + GameFabric server architecture with multi-region matchmaking — then went on the offensive, shipping the features players had stopped hoping for:
- A full guild system — Strongholds, Quests, Leaderboards, and Guild Wars between rival alliances
- Custom Lobbies with spectator support, KDA tracking, and seamless match rejoin
- Revamped Shop with Daily Spins, named ship loadouts, and a game-wide UI overhaul
- True cross-platform play via Epic Online Services, with Steam Deck and full controller support
- Clean Unreal Engine C++ architecture — systems built on proven design patterns and SOLID principles, so every new feature extends the codebase instead of fighting it
The result
Relaunched on Steam and the Epic Games Store with dramatically lower server costs, a custom CRM dashboard giving the studio complete live-ops control — and a game that runs better than the day it first launched.
Unreal Engine 5 (C++) · Epic Online Services · Gameye + GameFabric · PlayFab
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