Matchmaking is one of the most important—and most misunderstood—parts of an online game.
It directly affects:

• Fairness
• Player satisfaction
• Retention
• Queue times
• Server allocation
• Competitive integrity

This chapter introduces everything you need to build matchmaking for modern multiplayer games.

1. What Is Matchmaking?

Matchmaking is the process of automatically grouping players into balanced matches.

A matchmaking system:

1. Accepts players into a queue
2. Evaluates their skill, latency, and roles
3. Finds compatible teammates and opponents
4. Allocates a game server
5. Places all players into the match

Sounds simple, but real systems must work under constraints:
players vary in skill, region, group size, and tolerance for waiting.