Quark Multiplayer Tech Enters Early Access, Promises 100,000 Players Per Instance

A multiplayer backend solution, Quark, that claims to remove hard player caps for online instances — allowing up to 100,000 players within the same shard — has entered early access for developers. The tech was developed by MetaGravity and was first used to build the upcoming large-scale PvP game Edge of Chaos.

In traditional online infrastructure, shards refer to isolated server instances that typically max out at 100–200 players. MetaGravity says Quark removes that ceiling entirely. The company stated that there was no actual hard limit, suggesting that games with 10,000 players per shard — and even 100,000 — were still possible.

In most modern online multiplayer games, the typical player limits per server instance, or shard, tend to vary by genre and infrastructure. Many battle royale and open-world PvP games such as PUBG, DayZ, Rust, Ark, and Escape from Tarkov usually support around 100 to 200 players per instance. Large-scale shooters like the Battlefield series typically cap out between 64 and 128 players. Some MMORPGs, including World of Warcraft and EVE Online, allow up to 250 players per zone or shard in typical engagements. Instances supporting over 1,000 players are rare and generally require heavy optimization or specialized infrastructure, as seen in games like Planetside 2 or EVE Online during large-scale battles where time dilation is used to manage server load.

Aside from removing the playercount cap, Quark also promises major cost savings for live service games. Quark developers claim that the traditional equation of one server per group of players no longer applies. In many cases, MetaGravity said, one virtual machine may be sufficient to run a large game instance, significantly reducing hosting and maintenance expenses.

Quark comes with official plugins for both Unity and Unreal Engine; developers interested in experimenting with Quark can apply for access on MetaGravity’s official site.