Velan knocks backend work out with Unity

How Velan Studios dodged backend busywork when launching Knockout City

Velan Studios and Unity Multiplayer Services

Velan Studios is an independent studio founded in 2016 with the vision of using breakthrough technology to deliver revolutionary gameplay experiences. In 2021, the studio launched their first live-service title: Knockout City. The multi-platform action game amassed over a million downloads across all platforms while still in beta. With little experience in live-service launches, Velan trusted UGS products, Multiplay and Vivox, to provide the hosting and voice solutions for Knockout City.

  • The challenge

    Create a fun multiplayer game without expertise in online infrastructure

  • Launched

    May 2021

  • Platforms

    PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows

  • Engine

    Proprietary

  • Genre

    Action

Providing support for Velan’s first live-service launch

Ensuring Knockout City launched without a hitch and developed a healthy and active community was key for Velan Studios. By partnering with Unity, they were able to launch with support every step of the way for their Multiplay hybrid cloud server hosting and Voice and Text communication/chat (Vivox).

Velan의 첫 라이브 서비스 출시 지원

결과

The results

  • Successfully scaled to five million players in less than a month
  • Seamless cross-platform functionality praised by gaming publications
  • Clear voice comms with safeguards in place to ensure a non-toxic community
  • Months of engineering work saved with Vivox
  • Accessibility integration through Speech-to-text capabilities
One-hit KO

One-hit KO

Velan knew that the best way to relay how fun their game is by showing – not telling. They were convinced that players needed to experience Knockout City just once for it to blow them away, so they came up with a launch plan that was a little outside the box.

Block Party was the Knockout City launch event that gave 10 days of unlimited access to all players, allowing them to enjoy team-based catching and throwing fun with exclusive cosmetics for players who purchased the game during the event. The idea was to kickstart their community, get players trying the game, and launch big.

“We had no idea whether there’d be 10 people or 10 million people who wanted to play it – we had to be prepared for all of those scenarios,” said Rich Nolan, producer on Knockout City at Velan.

Keeping an eye on the ball

Keeping an eye on the ball

“90% of our team had never released a live service game before. We needed someone who could help us deliver a launch on all platforms in all regions around the world simultaneously – because that was not something we could build internally,” explains David Nathanielsz, chief operating officer at Velan Studios.

Nolan and the team knew they had to find a way to mitigate their lack of experience and nail the hosting solution to make Knockout City a success, without getting distracted from what would make the game enjoyable.

Having seen the work Multiplay had done on several of the biggest multiplayer titles in the world, Velan Studios were convinced that they had found the expertise and experience to make their vision work.

War Room launches – a real knockout

War Room launches – a real knockout

One of the key aspects of Multiplay was a collaborative element that didn’t exist with a lot of the other providers Velan was considering at the time. To ensure smooth rollouts, Multiplay also set up dedicated war room launch meetings with live support from key team members and active responses to any issues encountered.

“At first, we developed different dedicated server abilities with other providers in parallel – and it was like night and day, the support we were getting with Multiplay vs these other providers. We eventually said: ‘Ok it doesn’t make sense to keep these other things alive, let’s go all in on Multiplay.’” – Rich Nolan, Knockout City Producer at Velan

The Knockout City Utopia

The Knockout City Utopia

Velan wasn’t content to get their game online, launch it, and leave the rest to fate. They were looking to build a game with an active, engaged, and well-protected community. The team pursued a design which kept the user in mind and made as safe an environment as possible for their players. 

Central to this plan would be strong in-game voice comms, with a few specifications designed to ensure a non-toxic community. After assessing some options for how to integrate voice chat in a way that helped their game reach its full potential, Unity Multiplayer Services again won out with Vivox being the chosen solution.

Overall, between the ease of using the solution, the links to platform holders, and game industry expertise, Vivox became a real time saver.

하나의 도시, United

One city, united

People like their games to be cross-platform, and Velan knew it when they were building Knockout City

Velan wanted to make sure they launched with a large consistent player base, without fragmenting down their audience on a per-platform basis, which would increase matchmaking times or lead to poor matches. 

“We wanted a big pool of players to pull from for matchmaking and that is a self reinforcing feature,” Chief Operating Officer David Nathanielz told us.

The team found that both Multiplay and Vivox were instrumental in delivering the cross-platform experience that led to rave reviews, with Ars Technica going so far as to say: “Knockout City has the game industry's best cross-platform multiplayer [we’ve] seen.”

Want to dodge backend infrastructure work?

Want to dodge backend infrastructure work?

Velan managed to realize a vision of a game which they had bounced the idea around for years.

They were able to take the idea and run, jump, and paraglide with it, forging the most enjoyable version of their concept while not being restricted by a lack of experience with online multiplayer architecture.

By utilizing Unity Multiplayer Services to get their voice chat and server hosting up and running, Velan managed to make Knockout City an exciting game, with a safe and friendly community for its players.

David Nathanielsz, Chief Operating Officer at Velan Studios

“Having direct access to the team at Multiplay has sped up development time. It’s really about speed to market, that’s what we gained with Unity.”

David Nathanielsz, Chief Operating Officer at Velan Studios
Rich Nolan, Knockout City Producer at Velan Studios

“From a multiplay standpoint, it was pretty much no work to support all platforms and Vivox was central for delivering on cross-platform functionality.”

Rich Nolan, Knockout City Producer at Velan Studios

Add Unity Multiplayer Services to your team

Velan Studios trusts Unity Multiplayer Solutions to deliver incredible player experiences. Our solutions, like Multiplay and Vivox, are tried and tested at scale and evolve with the industry. Download the full case study to learn more about how Velan Studios got ahead of the competition with Unity.

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