Overwatch, Blizzard’s competitive hero shooter, is seemingly available on everything these days. All one really needs is a mobile port and then you might as well just be swimming in Overwatch. Having said that, with all those platforms available to players, it’s strange that it’s taken five years to implement some kind of cross-play feature. Fortunately, that’s about to change as the recently released Developer Update confirmed that cross-platform multiplayer is inbound and powered by the global Battle.net update. The whole feature sounds like it’ll generally be simple to navigate… if you’re on PC. Console players may have a harder time with it.
The gist of it is if you’re on PC, you can practically walk into a cross-play match. The only real requirement for it is a Battle.net account… something most console players have never needed before. If you’re on console, you’ll need to set up a Battle.net account and then link that to your console account. After that’s done you’re good to know! In terms of matchmaking and balancing, game director Aaron Keller explained that PC players will only be able to join console players if they are wanted. Console players have the option to disable cross-play while the feature will always be active for folks on PC. Console players will also need to make do without their aim-assist, if they use it, when they’re matched with PC players. It should go without saying that for competitive play, cross-play will not be an option.
The cross-play system will launch into an open beta “soon” and will cover players on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch. Sadly, cross progression is not included with this update. Keller elaborated on this topic by saying, “”We understand that this feature is important for some of you, and it’s something that the Overwatch team is excited to work on in the future.”
Last Updated: June 10, 2021
