Bethesda seems to pressure Sony with demand for crossplay in card games kaart
Bethesda says crossplay support for the upcoming console version of the card game The Elder Scrolls: Legends is “non-negotiable.” With this, the publisher seems to be putting pressure on Sony, which is holding off the boat as far as crossplay is concerned, for example with Fortnite.
The free card game The Elder Scrolls: Legends has been available for a while, but a graphically polished version will follow later this year for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch. Bethesda wants all versions of the game on all platforms to fully support crossplay, where progress is also not platform dependent, but saved universally. That’s what Bethesda’s vice president of marketing, Pete Hines, said in an interview with Game Informer.
The interviewer asked Hines if these requirements mean that The Elder Scrolls: Legends might not come out on the PlayStation 4 if Sony digs in and doesn’t allow crossplay for the time being. Hines dodged that question somewhat; he did not mention Sony, but did say that all partners are in talks. He made it clear that it is Bethesda’s intention that The Elder Scrolls: Legends will allow for cross-play anywhere and that players should be able to play against anyone who is online at the same time, regardless of which platform.
Bethesda doesn’t seem to be so firm about these requirements with another, larger title from its own stable: Fallout 76. With this game, which comes out on November 14, Bethesda seems to have already resigned itself to the lack of crossplay between the PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. Bethesda game director Todd Howard previously said his studio had this wish, but he said Sony was “not as helpful as hoped.”
Sony announced in June that it is working on a solution to block Fortnite accounts on Xbox or Nintendo Switch. Currently, players who log in to a PlayStation 4 with the game will not be able to transfer their Fortnite account to other consoles afterwards. Sony is probably doing this to secure as much revenue as possible and can also do so given the large player group: at the end of June Sony announced that it had delivered a total of 82.2 million units of the PlayStation 4.