How Cloudflare Took Down League of Legends, Valorant & More

November 18, 2025 – If you tried logging into your favorite multiplayer game yesterday and found yourself staring at error messages, you weren’t alone. A major Cloudflare outage rippled across the internet, taking down game servers, disrupting matchmaking systems, and leaving millions of players disconnected. Here’s everything you need to know about what happened and why it affected your gaming experience.

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What Happened During the Cloudflare Outage?

On November 18, 2025, Cloudflare experienced a massive service disruption that cascaded across the internet. The outage lasted several hours, causing widespread issues for websites, applications, and gaming platforms that rely on Cloudflare’s infrastructure.

Players across multiple gaming platforms reported:

• Unable to connect to game servers
• Sudden disconnections mid-match
• Login authentication failures
• Matchmaking errors
• Increased ping and latency issues
• Complete game launcher failures

The outage affected everything from massive multiplayer titles to indie games, creating one of the most widespread gaming disruptions in recent memory.

Understanding Cloudflare’s Role in Online Gaming

Before diving into why the outage hit gamers so hard, it’s important to understand what Cloudflare does and why so many game companies depend on it.

What is Cloudflare?

Cloudflare is a content delivery network (CDN) and internet infrastructure company that provides critical services to millions of websites and online platforms. Think of it as the invisible backbone that keeps the internet running smoothly.

Why Game Companies Use Cloudflare

Game developers and publishers rely on Cloudflare for several essential services:

1. DDoS Protection Online games are frequent targets of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, where malicious actors flood servers with traffic to knock them offline. Cloudflare acts as a shield, filtering out attack traffic before it reaches game servers.

2. Content Delivery Network (CDN) Game assets, updates, patches, and downloadable content are distributed through Cloudflare’s global network of servers. This ensures players worldwide can download content quickly from nearby servers rather than connecting to a single distant location.

3. DNS Services Cloudflare provides Domain Name System (DNS) services that translate game server addresses (like “game.example.com”) into IP addresses that computers can understand. When DNS fails, players simply cannot find the servers they’re trying to connect to.

4. Load Balancing During peak gaming hours, Cloudflare helps distribute player connections across multiple servers to prevent any single server from becoming overwhelmed.

5. API Management Modern games rely heavily on APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for authentication, matchmaking, leaderboards, in-game purchases, and social features. Many of these APIs route through Cloudflare’s infrastructure.

Why the Outage Took Down Game Servers

The Cloudflare outage didn’t necessarily mean game servers themselves crashed. Instead, it disrupted the critical pathways players use to reach those servers. Here’s how:

DNS Resolution Failures

When you launch a game and click “Play,” your computer needs to locate the game server. This happens through DNS lookup. With Cloudflare’s DNS services disrupted, players’ computers couldn’t resolve server addresses, making it impossible to establish connections even though the actual game servers were running fine.

It’s like having a fully functional store but all the street signs leading to it have been taken down—the store exists, but nobody can find it.

Authentication System Breakdowns

Most modern games require authentication before letting you play. This process typically involves:

1. Your game client connecting to an authentication server
2. Verifying your account credentials
3. Checking your subscription or license status
4. Loading your player profile and inventory

If any of these authentication services were routed through Cloudflare, the outage would prevent players from logging in, even if the game servers themselves were operational.

API Connectivity Issues

Today’s online games aren’t standalone applications—they’re complex ecosystems that constantly communicate with various services:

• Matchmaking systems to find opponents
• Friend lists and social features
• In-game stores and microtransactions
• Leaderboards and statistics tracking
• Anti-cheat systems

When Cloudflare went down, these API endpoints became unreachable, breaking critical game functionality.

CDN Disruption

Some games require players to download configuration files, asset bundles, or verification data before connecting to servers. With Cloudflare’s CDN offline, these essential files couldn’t be retrieved, preventing game launches or causing incomplete loads.

Protection Layer Removal

Ironically, Cloudflare’s outage may have made some game servers vulnerable. Without Cloudflare’s DDoS protection actively filtering traffic, some game companies may have taken servers offline preemptively to avoid exposure to attacks.

The Cascading Effect on Different Game Types

Different types of games were affected in various ways:

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs)

MMO games typically have complex login systems, persistent world servers, and extensive backend infrastructure. The outage hit these games particularly hard because:

• Players couldn’t authenticate
• Even if some players were already logged in, many game features stopped working
• World servers couldn’t communicate with authentication databases
• In-game transactions and marketplace features failed

Competitive Multiplayer Games

Games like first-person shooters, battle royales, and MOBAs faced:

• Matchmaking system failures
• Rank and statistics not updating
• Mid-match disconnections resulting in penalties for players
• Inability to form parties or join friends

Free-to-Play Games

Free-to-play titles that rely heavily on in-game purchases were doubly affected:

• Players couldn’t access the game
• Revenue streams were completely halted during peak hours
• Seasonal events and time-limited offers were disrupted

Cloud Gaming Services

Cloud gaming platforms that stream games to players’ devices were severely impacted because the entire service chain—from authentication to streaming—relies on stable internet infrastructure.

The Broader Impact on Gaming Infrastructure

This outage revealed just how centralized internet infrastructure has become. Key concerns include:

Single Point of Failure

When a single company like Cloudflare experiences issues, thousands of services go down simultaneously. The gaming industry’s heavy reliance on Cloudflare creates a vulnerability where diverse games and platforms all fail together.

Global Nature of Modern Gaming

Players around the world were affected simultaneously, highlighting how international gaming has become and how a problem in one region can cascade globally through interconnected systems.

Always-Online Requirements

Many modern games require constant internet connectivity, even for single-player experiences. This outage demonstrated the fragility of always-online game design when critical infrastructure fails.

Revenue and Player Trust

For game companies, every minute of downtime translates to:

• Lost revenue from in-game purchases
• Missed opportunities during limited-time events
• Frustrated players who may leave for competitor games
• Damage to reputation and player trust

What Game Companies Are Doing to Prevent Future Issues

Following this outage, game developers and publishers are likely reconsidering their infrastructure strategies:

Diversification of Services

Rather than relying solely on Cloudflare, companies may adopt multi-provider strategies, using backup CDN providers and DNS services that can take over during outages.

Improved Failover Systems

Implementing automatic failover mechanisms that can switch to alternative service providers when primary infrastructure fails.

Hybrid Infrastructure

Maintaining some critical services on dedicated infrastructure that doesn’t route through third-party providers, ensuring basic functionality during widespread outages.

Better Communication

Developing clearer communication channels to inform players about the nature of outages (whether it’s a game-specific issue or a broader infrastructure problem).

What This Means for Gamers

As a player, here’s what you should understand:

Server Status Isn’t Always What It Seems

Your game’s “server status” page might show everything is operational, but you still can’t connect. This outage demonstrated that many factors beyond the game servers themselves affect your ability to play.

Checking Your Connection

When you can’t connect to a game, it’s worth checking:

• Your own internet connection
• The game’s official status page
• Third-party status sites like Downdetector
• Cloudflare’s status page (status.cloudflare.com)
• Social media for widespread reports

Why Ping Checkers Matter

This is exactly why services that monitor game server status, ping, and connectivity are invaluable. They help you quickly determine whether the problem is:

• Your local connection
• Your ISP
• Regional network issues
• The game servers themselves
• Infrastructure providers like Cloudflare

Real-time monitoring helps you understand whether you should troubleshoot your setup or just wait for infrastructure to recover.

Top Games and Platforms That Rely on Cloudflare

Understanding which games and platforms depend on Cloudflare helps explain why today’s outage had such widespread impact. Here are some of the major gaming services affected:

Riot Games Titles

League of Legends and Valorant were among the most severely impacted games during the outage. Riot Games uses Cloudflare services for their authentication systems and web infrastructure. Players experienced:

• Complete inability to launch games
• Authentication failures preventing login
• Matchmaking system crashes
• Website access issues

Both games have massive global player bases, with League of Legends averaging over 150 million monthly active players and Valorant growing rapidly in the competitive FPS space.

Discord

As a communication platform used by virtually every gaming community, Discord’s reliance on Cloudflare is significant. Discord uses Cloudflare to:

• Handle over 2.4 million concurrent WebSocket connections
• Distribute static assets globally through Cloudflare’s CDN
• Protect against DDoS attacks on their real-time communication servers
• Serve over 2 petabytes of traffic monthly

When Discord goes down, it doesn’t just affect one game—it impacts communication across thousands of gaming communities simultaneously.

EVE Online (CCP Games)

The massive space MMO EVE Online uses Cloudflare Magic Transit and Spectrum for comprehensive network protection. CCP Games relies on Cloudflare for:

• DDoS protection at both Layer 3 and Layer 4
• TCP proxy services for game ports
• Bot management to prevent credential stuffing attacks
• Protection of their unique dual-proxy infrastructure

Subway Surfers (SYBO Games)

This mobile gaming giant uses Cloudflare extensively:

• Cloudflare R2 for storing game assets and creative campaigns
• CDN services to deliver content globally
• DDoS mitigation for their servers
• Smart routing to optimize traffic between global users and their servers

SYBO reports saving approximately $60,000 monthly through Cloudflare’s infrastructure while serving up to a petabyte of traffic.

Minecraft Servers

While Minecraft itself isn’t entirely dependent on Cloudflare, thousands of community-run Minecraft servers use Cloudflare Spectrum for:

• DDoS protection for TCP/UDP game traffic
• Traffic acceleration to reduce lag
• Protection without requiring additional hardware
• Global distribution of server connections

Cloudflare offers specific Minecraft server protection plans, making it a popular choice for server administrators.

Magic Circle Games

This indie multiplayer gaming platform built their entire infrastructure on Cloudflare Workers and Durable Objects. They use Cloudflare for:

• Edge-based game logic processing
• Session management for multiplayer games
• Routing players to different game versions
• Real-time state management

Magic Circle has successfully scaled to over 2 million games played using this serverless architecture.

DayZ and Other Survival Games

Multiple survival and multiplayer titles reported issues during the outage, as many smaller and indie game studios rely on Cloudflare for affordable DDoS protection and CDN services.

Mobile Games and Free-to-Play Titles

Countless mobile games use Cloudflare for:

• Serving video ads and promotional content
• Protecting API endpoints for in-game purchases
• Distributing game updates and patches
• Managing player authentication

When Cloudflare goes down, these games lose access to critical revenue-generating features.

Why These Games Choose Cloudflare

These games and platforms didn’t choose Cloudflare arbitrarily. They selected it for specific advantages:

Cost Efficiency: Cloudflare often provides better pricing than maintaining equivalent infrastructure in-house, especially for bandwidth-intensive services.

Global Network: With 330+ data centers worldwide, Cloudflare can deliver content and protect services closer to players anywhere on Earth.

DDoS Protection: Gaming companies face constant DDoS attacks. Cloudflare’s network can absorb massive attacks that would overwhelm most game servers.

Ease of Integration: Cloudflare’s services can be implemented quickly without major infrastructure overhauls.

Scalability: As games grow, Cloudflare’s infrastructure can scale automatically to handle increased traffic.

Comprehensive Services: Rather than managing multiple vendors, companies can get CDN, security, DNS, and other services from one provider.

The Future of Gaming Infrastructure

This outage serves as a wake-up call for the gaming industry. As games become more connected, more dependent on cloud services, and more reliant on third-party infrastructure, the need for resilient, redundant systems becomes critical.

Decentralization Efforts

Some in the gaming community advocate for more decentralized infrastructure, peer-to-peer systems, and player-hosted servers that reduce dependence on centralized services.

Edge Computing

Moving more processing and services to the network edge, closer to players, can reduce the impact of centralized infrastructure failures.

Offline Fallback Features

Developers might reconsider which features truly require online connectivity and which could function offline or in degraded modes during outages.

Conclusion

The Cloudflare outage of November 18, 2025, demonstrated how interconnected and interdependent modern online gaming has become. While Cloudflare provides essential services that make gaming faster, safer, and more reliable under normal circumstances, this event revealed the risks of centralized infrastructure.

For gamers, understanding these underlying systems helps explain why outages happen and why they can be so widespread. For the industry, it’s a reminder that resilience, redundancy, and diverse infrastructure strategies aren’t just technical considerations—they’re essential for maintaining player trust and ensuring the continuity of online gaming experiences.

As we move forward, the gaming industry must balance the efficiency and protection that services like Cloudflare provide with the need for robust failover systems and infrastructure diversity. Only then can we minimize the impact of future outages and ensure that players can access their favorite games when they want to play.