Backend Customization with Extend: Building Custom Matchmaking Logic

There is no one-size-fits-all backend for games, no two studios want it exactly the same way.  Out-of-the-box systems can only go so far and at some point, you need the freedom to customize. That’s why we built Extend. 

What the Matchmaking Core Extend Sample Is

The Matchmaking Core sample is an Extend Override app written in Go. It shows how our matchmaking service can call your custom function. It includes:

• A gRPC server that overrides matchmaking behavior.
• A working demo that pairs two players into a team.
• Built-in authentication and authorization to secure communication.
• Observability hooks for metrics, traces, and logs.

It’s not a finished product. Instead, it’s a blueprint you can clone, modify, and deploy to fit your game’s matchmaking rules. GitHub Repo: extend-core-matchmaker

What you can do with it

This sample app is valuable in a few ways. 

• For AccelByte customers, it’s a ready-to-use starting point to implement custom matchmaking without boilerplate. 
• For studios evaluating us, it’s proof that the platform isn’t a black box but can be extended to match specific needs. 
• For other devs, it can still serve as a conceptual reference showing how microservices can be structured with gRPC, authentication, observability, and deployment best practices.

You can clone the repo, adapt it to your environment, test it locally with Docker and Postman, and deploy it with our backend service using extend-helper-cli. The README in the repo provides step-by-step instructions, from environment setup to local testing.

Explore the code here: extend-core-matchmaker GitHub repo.

This is the first in our Backend Customization with Extend series. Next, we’ll explore:

• How to collect and reconcile match results using Extend apps.
• How to implement full ranked matchmaking, complete with MMR calculation.