Summary
- Cross-play allows players on different platforms to play together seamlessly in both competitive and cooperative settings.
- Cross-platform play benefits the health of online communities and the developers that depend on them by combining all players into a single pool.
- Technical challenges like version control issues still pose an issue, but this is a small price to pay for an inclusive and accessible approach to online play.
Deciding which console to buy was once a decision that had to be made as a group. If you owned an Xbox but your friends were all on PlayStation, you wouldn’t be able to play online together (even in games that were available on both platforms).
Fast-forward 20 years and things have progressed considerably. For the most part, console and even PC players can play together without a second thought. It’s one of the best things about modern gaming.
What is Cross-Play?
Cross-play is the ability to play online games together, regardless of platform. Short for cross-platform play, the feature has come to define modern gaming as Microsoft, Nintendo, and (eventually) Sony all let their guards down during the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 era. This paved the way for the modern gaming landscape we now live in.
The feature applies to both competitive multiplayer titles like Fortnite and Call of Duty and cooperative games like Deep Rock Galactic and Helldivers 2. It’s a feature that many of us now simply expect to be included from day one, and it’s a relief to see many games released with the feature intact.
Fortnite is one of the most important titles in the history of cross-play, particularly where Sony is concerned. Confidential documents revealed that the company was embroiled in a battle with Epic over the inclusion of cross-platform play during the battle royale game’s rise to fame in 2018. Sony even blocked cross-play for a time, while Microsoft and Nintendo platforms could all play together.
Eventually, the company relented, though it’s possible that Sony’s “Cross-Platform Revenue Share” policy has resulted in Epic handing over more money to the company in order to allow Epic access to its network of players. With the floodgates open, PlayStation joined Xbox, Nintendo, and the PC in embracing a practice that brings people together regardless of platform.
One thing that cross-play cannot overcome is console exclusivity. This is why you can play Helldivers 2 on a PlayStation 5 with your friends on PC, but not on an Xbox. Even on PC, there are boundaries like Steam Deck owners being unable to play Call of Duty natively on SteamOS due to the lack of anti-cheat for the Linux platform.
The Big Benefits of Cross-Play
The most obvious benefit to cross-play is that you no longer have to pick a platform carefully if you want to play multiplayer games with friends. Whereas co-ordination was once key, as long as the game is available on multiple platforms there’s a good chance that the developers will build it with cross-play in mind.
Cross-play also benefits developers, particularly given how crowded the online gaming space has become. This brings us to the second major benefit: player availability.
Multiplayer games live and die based on their playerbase. Small numbers of players make it hard to get a game. This is a death knell for free-to-play titles in particular, which rely on converting a small number of active players into paying customers. Once upon a time, multiplayer games were effectively sandboxed within platform ecosystems.
With cross-play, the entire playerbase is combined into a single pool, with no artificial boundaries placed on who can play with who. This has been especially beneficial for console players since being limited to only those on the Xbox or PlayStation networks was rough back in the day.
The PC is the gaming world’s biggest gaming platform by virtue of the fact that just about any PC can play games. Making it possible for computers and consoles to play together doesn’t just speed up matchmaking, it can be enough to justify releasing the game on a platform like the Xbox in the first place. It’s also nice to deconstruct some of the unnecessary tribal boundaries that exist between gamers.
Rocket League was one of the first games to truly embrace crossplay, having enabled cross-platform multiplayer between PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2019. Cross-play arrived around four years after the game was initially released, with the game going on to reinvent itself many times over (eventually being released as a free-to-play title).
It’s heartening to see that many older games have returned to the drawing board and patched cross-play in. Off-road mud simulator SnowRunner is one such title that added cross-play a year after release. No Man’s Sky, a game that always seems to be improving, added cross-platform multiplayer in 2020. Minecraft was updated with cross-play over a massive number of platforms including PS4 and PS5, Xbox, Windows, iOS, Android, Samsung Gear VR, and Nintendo Switch.
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Cross-Play Still Poses Some Challenges
Of course, getting everything (and everyone) to play nicely isn’t always easy. There are technical hurdles to overcome, as developers must work with and implement various platform-specific APIs while appeasing the platform holders. This certainly adds time and cost to game development, which explains why some games don’t receive cross-play support until after launch.
Perhaps the most obvious issue with cross-play comes from version control. For two players to play with each other even on the same platform, they need to be running the same version of the game (as is any dedicated server that they’re trying to connect to).
Now extrapolate that problem out to three, four, or more platforms. Not only do you need to get your PC version out, but you need to update the PS5, Xbox Series, and Nintendo Switch versions too. This is less of a problem for larger development teams but, for smaller teams, these updates are often staggered.
In that case, it’s like that two different versions of a game will exist in the wild because there aren’t enough hours in the day for a small development team to get everything ready at once. The aforementioned SnowRunner has had its cross-play feature knocked out a few times, with developers Saber Interactive taking a few weeks to get everything back in sync.
There are a few other points of contention too. For example, competitive multiplayer shooters like Call of Duty often mix PC and console players in the same lobbies, leading some to cry foul with regards to the differences in control schemes.
While the console versions of these games depend on aim assist to overcome the lack of precision that aiming with an analog stick provides, PC players generally use a mouse and keyboard without any assistance. Though a mouse and keyboard is generally seen as the better choice, some feel that console players have an advantage.
As someone who played a lot of Black Ops 6 when it arrived, I can’t say this “issue” ever impacted my enjoyment of the game. Activision’s skill-based matchmaking goes a long way toward leveling the playing field, anyway.
Alongside this change in online play there has also been a big shakeup in the way players communicate. No platform has had as much of an impact on this space as Discord. You can now use Discord on a PS5 and Xbox to communicate with players regardless of platform. The feature integrates with your chosen console’s dashboard, allowing for easy voice chat without relying on PSN or Xbox multiplayer services.
Unfortunately, Nintendo isn’t on board with this yet and instead seems to be going with its own version of Discord called GameChat.
