Blizzard Entertainment Provides Overwatch With Crossplay Across All Platforms
Developer Blizzard Entertainment provides Overwatch with cross-platform multiplayer. That feature would work on all platforms. The game will receive support for multiplayer between the PC, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
According to Blizzard, the feature will be available as a beta “soon”. It allows players on different platforms to play the game with each other. For example, Overwatch is available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The game is also backwards compatible with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S consoles. Those platforms will also receive cross-play, the developer reports. The feature would work with almost all game modes except competitive; in that ranked mode, there will be separate pools for PC and console players.
The renewed Battle.net client would form the basis for crossplay, the developer reports. Gamers playing the game on consoles should therefore first create a Battle.net account and connect their Nintendo, PlayStation or Xbox accounts to that platform. It is not yet known when Blizzard will release the crossplay beta. It is also still unknown when the final version will be released.
Blizzard also announced on Wednesday that Battle.net will receive an update, which will give the platform, among other things, a worldwide friends list. It allows users from different regions to add each other and then see which games their friends from other regions are playing and chat with them. This was already possible in the past, but users had to switch regions first within Battle.net. This update will be available for all regions except China.
It doesn’t appear that users from different regions will also be able to play games with each other, although Blizzard does write that the worldwide friends list is only ‘the first step’: “Removing these barriers was an important technical task. Now that we’ve done that , we look forward to a future where all Battle.net players can interact and play with each other wherever they are.”