Nebula progress update: September 15, 2026

Match capacity to demand

Nebula can now add and remove workers as simulation load changes. A worker is a headless Unity process that simulates part of the game world. Developers can set a minimum and maximum worker count for local and cloud deployments instead of choosing one fixed size.

A quiet world can scale down to zero workers and start one when a player arrives. Recently stopped cloud workers can wait in an idle pool for reuse, which shortens later scale-out time. New balancing hints and dashboard information help developers see why Nebula changed capacity or why a busy area could not be split further.

Let players join from a browser

Unity Web builds can now connect to the same gateway as desktop clients. The gateway is the process that accepts player connections and routes game traffic. Browser clients use Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC), while existing clients can continue to use User Datagram Protocol (UDP) connections.

The command-line tool can build the web client, include it in a deployment, and print the local play address. Cloud deployments also serve the connection over HTTPS with automatically renewed certificates, so a game hosted on a secure web page can connect without mixed-content errors.

Recognize returning players

Every player can now keep a stable identity across connections. Games can accept accounts from an OpenID Connect provider, or let the gateway issue an anonymous identity for players who do not sign in. Saved characters and other persistent state can follow the identity instead of a display name or temporary connection.

The example game now restores a saved character by player identity and includes a diagnostic command for checking the active identity during development.

Add private spaces to a shared world

An instance is an isolated copy of one or more areas. Developers can now use instances for personal homes, party areas, training rooms, or separate mission copies without disconnecting players from the shared world.

Nebula prepares the destination before a player crosses into it. Occupants can receive a bounded, observation-only view of nearby public activity, while public players and other private copies do not receive the instance's entities. Physics and gameplay queries stay within the intended copy. The example game includes a private-room scenario that exercises these boundaries.

Keep the examples current

The example game also received a browser build profile and browser-compatible graphics updates. Together with the identity and private-space examples, these changes provide working paths for testing the day's features in a game project.