adminThe Hydra live-ops platform is now available to developers beyond Saber Interactive, offering modular online services for games at different stages of their lifecycle. Saber’s Head of Game Services, Dmitri Brevdo, explains how the technology developed across the company’s games and what studios can use it for.
Image credit: Saber Interactive
How the Hydra live-ops platform developed
Saber spent years building backend technology for its own titles. In 2018, the company created a custom backend for Quake Champions, including matchmaking and microtransaction services. That technology was adapted for World War Z in 2019, with additional services and cross-platform support.
The success of World War Z highlighted the need for a platform that could support a game over the long term. SnowRunner, released the following year, used another customized version. Its continued success prompted Saber to bring its services together in a unified, multi-tenant platform with a shared interface that could scale across the company’s portfolio.
Using a shared foundation means teams can focus on service quality, automated deployments, and operational infrastructure instead of recreating backend systems for every game. The 2024 launch of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 provided a major test: the platform supported hundreds of thousands of concurrent users without major issues while also serving older games.
World War Z has more than 30 million registered players, while SnowRunner has more than 20 million and is in its 17th content season. Saber says six other games have also been onboarded.
Services for a game’s lifecycle
Hydra includes online, meta-game, and live-operations tools. Its Configuration Service lets developers change supported game settings in real time without requiring players to download a patch. This can be useful for adjusting settings or updating content while keeping routine changes separate from a full game update.
Player-facing features include leaderboards, challenges, and community events. A Banners Service can display helpful tips, promote downloadable content, or highlight player communities. Analytics and telemetry tools let teams track technical measures such as frame rate, crash rates, and ping, alongside metrics specific to their games.
Initial setup and features inside the Hydra SDK | Image credit: Saber Interactive
Modular services and usage-based pricing
Saber is offering Hydra to other studios because the platform has been refined through use across its games. The SDK includes hundreds of modular services, such as matchmaking, dedicated server hosting, integrated voice chat, live-ops microservices, and a mod system certified for PlayStation and Xbox.
Pricing is based on usage, so costs are intended to reflect the services a game uses. Developers can select components rather than paying for the entire toolkit. Dedicated server hosting is often a significant backend expense; with Hydra, monthly hosting costs are calculated from average CPU, memory, and traffic consumption. For teams, monitoring these resource needs can help identify server optimizations and keep spending aligned with actual demand.
To manage hosting costs and reliability, Saber uses a hybrid approach. Long-term-leased bare-metal servers cover baseline traffic, while additional capacity can handle daily peaks and surges around launches or marketing events. Multiple service and hosting providers also help broaden regional coverage and maintain capacity in popular areas.
Integration, compatibility, and future plans
Hydra brings a broad range of microservices together in one SDK, reducing the need to integrate each feature separately. Its tools cover common needs such as game configuration, banners, microtransactions, and cross-platform matchmaking, as well as dedicated servers, crash-dump collection, voice chat, and mods.
Saber says Hydra has completed first-party certification processes for PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Amazon Luna. Developers should still assess which services fit their project and verify platform requirements during planning, especially when building for multiple platforms.
A chart in Hydra showcasing crashes, comparing Xbox platforms to PC, for a single day | Image credit: Saber Interactive
The platform is now in its fifth generation, with a unified API designed to meet the core needs of most Saber games. Saber plans to balance standardization with flexibility, extending existing APIs or creating new microservices when a project requires them.
Current development priorities include improving existing tools and analytics, alongside infrastructure upgrades intended to increase hosting flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Planned features include simpler support for large-scale beta playtests, more detailed player statistics, and developer portal sandboxes for safely testing backend configurations.
What developers should consider
Hydra’s modular approach may help studios avoid building every backend feature from scratch, but the best fit depends on a game’s requirements, platforms, and expected player activity. Teams evaluating the Hydra live-ops platform can start by identifying essential services, estimating hosting needs, and checking certification and integration requirements for their target platforms.
