Looking for advice on implementing Multi-Map/Zone/Areas with Netcode

I have what I feel like is a typical use case. Multiplayer 2D RPG game with multiple areas, for example a grassland area and a desert area. Two different players can be in two different zones. My first thought was, have multiple scenes, a player is only in one scene at a time, they only load one scene client side, but the server or host has all scenes loaded and is managing all network objects for every zone. Well turns out doing this is extremely unintuitive and complicated, which is also mentioned here https://docs-multiplayer.unity3d.co...e-management-overview#custom-scene-management.

The terminology and documentation is really hard to interpret, so I dont even know if what I am trying to do is possible even if I went through custom scene management.

So my second thought is, I dont go down the route of custom scene management and instead I just have one scene, forever, this scene loads in map chunks and places the player in the correct place they need to be when spawning in. So to the player it appears they are in a different scene, but in reality its one scene and they are just separated physically in space so the two zones dont connect to each other physically. The only issue with this is, I dont want the clients to have to load every single zone and have to be synchronized with every game object from every zone, because it could really be a lot.

I don't know what to do here or what path to take, or if this "zone" model that is typically seen in MMORPGs is possible with Unity Netcode.

 

@Punfish this sounds like an opportunity to talk about stacked scenes and Fish-Net

 

I just had a look at Fish-net, this might be exactly what I need. Thanks!