Multiplayer Esports and Event Technical Considerations

Esports in Minecraft Education can be an exciting way to unleash students' creativity in a way that challenges them and builds skills. Before beginning an esports multiplayer event, we recommend reviewing the guidance below.

While Minecraft Education supports up to 40 players in a single world, this number is not guaranteed, and is highly dependent on the host's hardware capabilities and network configuration. We recommend testing before the event to ensure the host device and network are equipped to host a multiplayer session with the number of joinees you're aiming for, in the environment in which you plan to run your event.

For hosting events on a dedicated server, see our recommendations on other versions of Minecraft here.

Network Considerations

While Minecraft Education does not take up a great deal of bandwidth for a small-group multiplayer session, the best way to know if your network can handle the Minecraft Education multiplayer event you're planning is to run a test with the target number of users on the target host device in advance of the event. You’ll also need our URLs allowlisted on the network firewalls to ensure devices can connect to our services. 

In addition, stability is key to ensuring users stay connected in longer, multi-user sessions. We suggest using a wired ethernet connection for both the host and joining users' devices. Unstable network connections may result in event interruptions such as users disconnecting from the host's multiplayer session.

Host Device Considerations

Hosting a multiplayer session takes more processing power than solo play, and the load on a device (especially it’s CPU and RAM) increases as more users connect to the host. In-game activities such as coding and redstone usage will also increase the load, as will exploring new areas in the world (i.e., increasing world size by generating new chunks). We also recommend closing any unnecessary apps on the hosting device to free up more of the device’s resources.   

See our article here for minimum device recommendations to use as a starting point. We recommend you also keep in mind the activities your users will be doing in Minecraft Education when choosing a host device.