Cross-Platform
Overwatch is one of the pioneers in the team-based multiplayer FPS genre as a ‘hero shooter’ that truly set the tone for many other games in the industry. Blizzard Entertainment released Overwatch in 2016 and the game has only risen in popularity since then, including eSports via the Overwatch League. With Overwatch 2 on the horizon, Blizzard Entertainment has endeavored to listen to the feedback of fans and implement changes that would genuinely change the game for the better. Recently, there has been a stark increase in the idea of crossplay between PC and consoles, especially from Microsoft with their Xbox Game Pass and Activision who have introduced crossplay into the Call of Duty franchise very successfully. Therefore, it was only a matter of time until Blizzard took the initiative in Overwatch. Today, via press release, Blizzard have confirmed that crossplay will be coming to Overwatch ‘soon’ utilizing the power of Battle.net.
In order to access crossplay, all console players must link their accounts to Battle.net while PC players need not perform this exercise as they are already connected. At the moment, crossplay will be supported on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. In terms of progress, there will be no resets to rank or stats when crossplay launches and there will be separate leaderboards for persons with crossplay enabled and disabled. Crossplay will be enabled for all game modes except Competitive, which will be split into two groups to ensure an even playing field, that is, PC and console. Most importantly, on console during crossplay, aim assist will be disabled by default to even the playing field for PC players. This is an interesting issue as there is much discussion about the effects of aim assist in games where there is crossplay enabled at the moment.
Finally, the developers have confirmed that crossplay can be disabled. Crossplay is currently in its beta phase and the team at Blizzard will consider all feedback and make continuous improvements.
What do you think about crossplay? Will you utilize it in Overwatch? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter and Facebook.