The Host Migration Graveyard: A feasibility study in co-op games

Host migration is a networking process that allows another player to take over as the game host when the original host disconnects, ensuring no loss of progress for the other players. Despite its potential to improve multiplayer stability and eliminate dedicated server costs, it is generally considered a dead concept due to technical complexity and production cost constraints. This research explores the feasibility of implementing effective host migration strategies in online co-op games made in Unity. Various approaches were researched for performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency, offering practical solutions tailored for indie developers. Not only the feasibility of host migration but also the scalability of such an implementation was extensively tested and analyzed. There was data analysis done on 372 raw entries, comparing the performance of server-side and client-side information synchronization post host migration, which showed promising results.