Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating the deployment, scaling and operation of containerized applications. It was designed for long-running web services rather than short-lived match servers, which is why game-specific layers such as Agones exist on top of it. Powerful, general-purpose, and substantial to operate.
Also called
k8s
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What Is Kubernetes Used For in a Multiplayer Backend?
Most of a multiplayer backend is web services: login, lobbies, stores, inventories, leaderboards, the matchmaking API. They hold no state of their own, answer requests in milliseconds, and can be stopped and replaced at any time. That is the workload Kubernetes was built for, and it's where studios most often use it. In 2024, KRAFTON described running the PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS lobby as .NET microservices on Amazon EKS (AWS re:Invent 2024, GAM311).
The match itself is different. A game server holds live state for the whole session and can't be moved or restarted without ending the match. To run one safely, Kubernetes needs a game-specific layer on top, which is what Agones adds.
In Practices - Insights from Edgegap's Blog
Article's key insights
Infrastructure Modernization Objective: KRAFTON aimed to eliminate operational bottlenecks and improving scalability for hundreds of thousands of concurrent players across global regions by switching from session-based game server to modern container-based game server orchestration.
Agones Scaling Limitations: The open-source game server orchestration platform suffered from 15-minute bootstrapping delays during peak scaling events. KRAFTON's engineering team invested heavily in custom solutions to reduce this to 3-4 minutes through container registry proxies and Karpenter adoption. Whereas developers can simply use a fully managed solution like Edgegap which boots game server from cold start in 2 second median (October 2026, /platform-data/).
Operational Efficiency Benefits: Containerization reduced environment provisioning to under 5 minutes and enabled self-service capabilities. Teams gained autonomous access to testing infrastructure without DevOps intervention.
Hidden Resource Impact: The modernization journey consumed years of specialized engineering effort that could have been directed toward gameplay improvements. Most studios cannot afford this level of infrastructure investment while maintaining competitive development cycles.
Managed Platform Alternative: Fully managed solutions deliver equivalent, if not better, performance and scaling capabilities without internal complexity. Studios achieve enterprise-grade infrastructure through simple integration rather than multi-year implementation projects by using a platform like Edgegap.
What Does Self-Hosting Kubernetes for Game Servers Involve?
Standing up a cluster is the quick part. Managed services such as Amazon EKS, Google GKE and Azure AKS run the control plane for you. What stays with the studio grows along three lines.
Per region. Kubernetes is designed for one cluster to span the zones of a single region (Kubernetes documentation). Players aren't in one region, so a global game runs one cluster per region, each with its own nodes, fleets, capacity buffer and failure modes.
Per release. Kubernetes maintains its three most recent minor versions, each patched for about a year (kubernetes.io; version 1.37.1 shipped 15 September 2026). Each Agones release supports three Kubernetes versions (Agones documentation), so the two move together, in every regional cluster, on a schedule neither waits for.
Per node. Nodes have to come up fast enough to meet demand, and server images have to reach them quickly. Each node needs a public IP that players can reach, which also exposes it to DDoS. Add security patches, monitoring, and someone on call. On bare metal, the control plane and the hardware are yours as well.
None of this is unusual work. It's ongoing, and it multiplies with every region you run.
When Does Running Your Own Cluster Make Sense?
It makes sense when the cluster is already there: a studio that runs its backend services on Kubernetes, has people who operate it, and wants game servers on the same platform. It also fits studios that need their servers to stay inside their own cloud account.
For everyone else, the question is how many regions you need and who keeps them current. A shared network spreads that work across many studios: Edgegap's spans 615+ locations across 17+ providers (platform data, as of 18 September 2026). To compare self-hosted orchestration with a managed platform, see Edgegap vs Agones.
A word from our sponsor (ourselves!)
A region is a guess about where your players will be. Edgegap's Edge Cloud is a distributed, multi-cloud network of 615+ locations across 17+ providers, available on demand. Each server launches at the best available location on the network when the match starts, not at the nearest of a handful of regions.
