Key Takeaways
- Playing cross-platform means less wait time in matchmaking lobbies, making it easier to find a game.
- Competitive play can be imbalanced due to controller differences, leading to advantages for certain players.
- To avoid issues with cross-play, many games allow you to turn it off in the settings if needed.
Remember when cross-platform multiplayer gaming was something we all wanted? Now that we’ve got it, I don’t think it’s panned out exactly how I expected. Here’s why I’m so far unimpressed by cross-platform gaming.
What Cross-Platform Multiplayer Offers Gamers
Don’t get me wrong, I know that cross-platform gaming is pretty cool. It’s a technological innovation to tie games from different systems together in the same space. There are several things I really appreciate about playing with people on different platforms, now that I’ve experienced it.
One of the best things about cross-platform gaming is the lack of wait times in matchmaking lobbies. As someone who has spent way too much time waiting for matchmaking on some of my PC-only titles, I appreciate jumping into a game with console players. Pooling all players together means it’s a lot easier to find a game.
Probably the best thing about cross-platform multiplayer is that it allows me to play with friends who don’t game on their PC. Nothing is as satisfying as jumping into Monster Hunter: Rise to play alongside my Nintendo Switch compatriots while using my PC. It also saves me from having to spend another $60 to get the game for Switch just to play with those friends. Despite these benefits, however, there are a few things that are less than stellar.
Controller Mis-Matching and Aim Assist
As a PC player, I enjoy playing against other PC players because I know we all have the same hardware. Another upside of cross-platform play is allowing us PC players to hook up a controller and play alongside those console players. However, there’s something amiss here.
Some games offer an aim-assist for console players to give them a more even footing with PC players. Call of Duty Warzone offers a pretty well-defined aim assist setting for controller players, sometimes making it even better than playing with a mouse and keyboard. However, if you’re not a controller owner, it’s likely that you’ll still have better base accuracy and may dominate in online play.
A few games offer “controller matching” to avoid this issue, allowing players to match with other players who are using the same hardware. This would be a better feature if more games included it, but sadly, it’s not seen on a lot of cross-platform titles. This is only an issue when you’re playing competitive PVP titles, however. Co-op titles don’t need any adjusting for this metric.
The Mouse-and-Keyboard vs. Controller War
The controller vs mouse-and-keyboard debate will probably never be settled in our lifetimes. A study done in 2011 shows that players who switch platforms tend to feel a little out-to-sea when it comes to their control scheme, which explains why players who are used to keyboard-and-mouse may feel like controllers just don’t feel right.
The final debate comes down to whether one wants to sacrifice precision or comfort. There’s no major difference between the two control schemes, although in a head-to-head competition, the user’s experience determines who wins. Unfortunately, this isn’t something some gamers consider.
Toxic gaming communities exist all over, but there’s a lot of vitriol for console players playing what’s seen as a PC title. This might be due to several factors, but there’s no reason for the hate. Controllers and mouse-and-keyboard players can co-exist peacefully. However, this divide wouldn’t exist if cross-play wasn’t a thing.
Problems That Impact Competitive Play
For friendly, co-op games, having latency issues or control scheme bias isn’t such a huge issue. However, for other games that have a healthy competitive scene, this could be a terrible thing to deal with.
PVP play in titles like War Thunder and Overwatch 2 requires players to have more-or-less the same footing. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. As someone who’s played both of these titles with both control schemes, there’s a distinct difference in how they handle that’s more than just getting used to the controls.
In competitive play, PC players usually dominate first-person lobbies where console gamers are present. This, combined with the placement system and how losing can affect your final rewards, leads to a general imbalance in titles. While cross-play is great for non-competitive titles, it could ruin competition for one subset of gamers. After all, if a player has a core advantage, they need less skill to dominate in competitive play.
The Ergonomics of Playing on a PC Don’t Match Consoles
As a PC player, it gets very difficult to keep up with my console friends when they’re running marathon sessions. My keyboard-and-mouse is great for accuracy and precision, but after a while, carpal tunnel syndrome starts setting in. Meanwhile, my console friends are just getting started with their comfy controllers for the next four hours. This downside is something a lot of friend groups have to deal with when cross-platform gaming is considered.
Granted, a person can sometimes set up a keyboard and mouse for use with an Xbox or a PS5, but why would you want to do that when it’s a step back in terms of comfort? The accuracy boost just isn’t worth it when it comes to long gaming sessions. Console players will always be more comfortable for long sessions than PC gamers locked into a keyboard and mouse.
The easy solution to this is to get a controller to play alongside your console friends. In that case, you’ll have the best of all worlds, and don’t need to worry about the downside of getting tired before they do.
A Few Other Considerations
There are a few other things that many might not even consider to be issues when it comes to cross-platform play, since it doesn’t affect them directly.
Gameplay in cross-platform titles requires a bit more work on the developer’s part. The reason so many games traditionally lacked this functionality is because of how much work goes into porting games between hardware, including testing for compatibility across platforms. It’s very likely updates may cause a game to become unplayable on one platform or another.
Another issue is communication in team games. In many cases, voice chat is the go-to for communication and coordination in some team-based titles. While PC gamers typically hop in with their headsets connected, many console gamers don’t use headsets. This makes it hard to communicate and coordinate effectively, leading to a severe disadvantage for one team.
You Can Always Turn Off Cross-Play
I think that keeping cross-platform play to non-competitive titles would fix most of the problems. I like playing co-op with my friends. However, if cross-platform competitive play is to exist, developers may need to ensure that the players on both teams are matched based on their controller type.
More games should offer controller-matching as an option to level the playing field. Thankfully, many games allow you to turn cross-platform multiplayer off in the settings so if you’re bothered by these issues like I am take a look in the settings menu.
