The Studio

Spectral Games was founded in 2009, starting out with mobile apps and games. In 2021, the studio made a bold move and refocused entirely on virtual reality, building a team of VR specialists. Its debut VR title, Medieval Dynasty New Settlement, holds a 4.7-star rating with more than 8,900 reviews on Meta Quest, as of September 2026.

Its second game is The Lightkeepers, a cooperative VR action game for Meta Quest set in a mysterious 1920s world inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Squads of up to four sign a contract, sail between mist-shrouded islands by day, gather resources, then fight off nightmares from the deep to keep the lighthouse burning until dawn. Over 20 weapons, crafted mines and grenades, and hand-designed islands keep every run different.

The Challenge

The Lightkeepers was originally designed as peer-to-peer only, for both lobby and gameplay. Players would create a room from the main menu, up to four would join, and off they'd go. For a non-competitive game like a VR co-op title, that's the typical setup, and dedicated servers usually aren't part of the plan.

Then, mid-production, the team took inspiration from free-to-play VR social games and their "Social Lobby." No main menu. Players drop straight into the first open lobby and get to the action as fast as possible. The vision was "Helldivers, but you can meet other players on your ship," a place where veterans teach newcomers and strangers become squadmates.

That vision pushed the peer-to-peer model past its limits in three ways:

• Constant churn. The lobby loop is join, find players, pick a contract, load into the mission. Players are always coming and going, so relying on a player as host would trigger host migration far too often.

• Bigger crowds, one host. For the lobby to feel alive, it needed to hold more than 8 players at once. In peer-to-peer, that whole crowd rides on one player's device and connection, creating uneven latency and a host advantage. In VR, where players read each other's body language, voices, and hand movements in real time, that unevenness breaks the sense of presence.

• Instant joins, at any volume. With no main menu, every player has to land in an open lobby automatically. When lobbies fill up, new ones need to open, and a wave of simultaneous joins can't be allowed to overcrowd a single space.

So Spectral Games went against the grain for a co-op title and chose dedicated servers, to deliver an online experience peer-to-peer couldn't. The catch: the team had zero experience launching any server architecture.

"Players constantly hop on and hop out of the lobby map, which meant host migration was not an option, as it would be way too frequent."

Grzegorz Fojcik, Tech Director, Spectral Games

The Solutions

Dedicated Servers for 8+ Player Social Lobbies

Spectral Games moved the social lobby onto Edgegap's dedicated servers. With no player acting as host, host migration is off the table entirely. Players hop in and out of the ship freely, everyone shares the same fair connection to the lobby, and the crowd keeps playing uninterrupted. Missions themselves stay player-hosted once a squad loads in.

The choice of provider was easy. Other studios the team knew were already running on Edgegap, and after comparing alternatives, Edgegap's broad portfolio of supported games sealed it.

"Edgegap was our first choice, as we knew other games using Edgegap and they didn't have anything bad to say. I researched other solutions and decided to go with Edgegap due to their big portfolio of supported games."

Grzegorz Fojcik, Tech Director, Spectral Games

Matchmaking and Server Browser

At first, the team drove everything through Edgegap's Deployment API directly, placing players into lobbies by hand. It worked, but they quickly saw it wasn't sustainable. Two managed products took over the heavy lifting:

• Players placed automatically. Logic-based Matchmaking groups players into open lobbies and deploys a new lobby server as soon as every other one is full. No menus, no manual routing, just straight into the ship.

• Seats reserved, no overcrowding. Server Browser handles seat reservation, so a wave of players joining at the same moment never overfills a lobby.

"Previously we were using the pure Deployment API, doing everything by hand, and we quickly realized this is not the way. Server Browser and Matchmaking came to the rescue with what they offer to solve those issues."

Grzegorz Fojcik, Tech Director, Spectral Games

Support and Documentation

For a team launching its first server architecture, the learning curve could have been steep. Clear documentation gave them a reliable baseline, and when questions came up, Edgegap's team answered fast and pointed them toward solutions.

"We liked Edgegap for quick support, clear and very useful documentation, and an honest will to help and hint at solutions to ship the game in the best state possible."

Grzegorz Fojcik, Tech Director, Spectral Games

Conclusion

Spectral Games went from a peer-to-peer design to a live VR social lobby on dedicated servers, with no prior server experience and no server-side issues at launch. The ship stays full, newcomers find their crew, and the lighthouse stays lit.

"As someone who is not a network programmer myself, and without experience with servers, I was able to implement Edgegap quickly and launch the game without issues on the server side. This means it's good."

Grzegorz Fojcik, Tech Director, Spectral Games