Good news, heroes: cross-play is on its way to multiplayer game Overwatch, and it’s coming soon. Blizzard announced that the feature will link players on all platforms before the end of the year, and that includes players on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch. To mark the occasion, everyone will receive a free golden loot box when the feature arrives.
There are a couple things to note about how cross-play is going to work, however. Cross-play won’t work in competitive modes, and by default it will be disabled for console players. With cross-play disabled, console players will only be matched with players on their specific console. Parties of PC players will, by default, be matched with groups of PC players, and with parties of both PC and console players – not with parties of console players only.
To participate in cross-play at all, console players will have to create and link a Battle.net account to their console account where they play Overwatch. That done, they’ll be able to opt in to cross-play and create groups with both console and PC players.
Here’s new Overwatch game director Aaron Keller explaining how it’ll work.
As Keller emphasises, the new rules regarding cross-play do not apply to competitive Overwatch play, where you will not be able to play as a party of mixed console and PC players. Also, cross-progression will not be available when cross-play launches, but Keller says it’s a feature the Overwatch team is “excited to work on in the future.”
You can head to the official FAQ for more information on cross-play. If you’re already playing on PC, you don’t have to do a thing – you’re already all set up for cross-play when it arrives.
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