Just last month, Blizzard mentioned that they would be rolling out some major new features for Overwatch in the near future. They just announced that their great hero shooter is getting cross-platform multiplayer between all of its platforms. There are, of course, reservations about competitive play and input types and trying to keep the field level. The bottom line, however, is that you will soon be able to team up with your console friends.
To PC folks, crossplay sounds like a pretty straightforward change. If you’re playing Overwatch on PC, you already have a Battle.net account. Console players will need to create one or link an existing one to their console account. However, once that’s done, you can invite them to join forces for matchmaking. Game Director Aaron Keller covers a few examples here in Blizzard’s announcement.
Basically, it boils down to allowing PC gamers to play with console gamers only when console people specifically request it. By default, console players only match with other console players. You also have the option to turn off cross-play, but PC players won’t. PC folks are matched with a mix of console and PC gamers by default. Another important note is that console players’ aiming aid will be disabled when matchmaking with PC players.
That doesn’t apply to competitive matchmaking pools that keep PC and console people separate, even PC players who use a gamepad. Blizzard breaks down the rest of the how and what if and everything in its cross-play FAQ post.
Cross-progression, however, is not part of this update. « We understand this feature is important to some of you and the Overwatch team looks forward to working on it in the future, » said Keller in the announcement.
This ties in with Blizzard’s announcement today about their latest update for Battle.net. The service is going global, Blizz says, which means you don’t have to switch regions to connect with friends who live on the other side of the planet.
Blizzard says that crossplay will begin in beta and that « the Overwatch development team will be watching the feedback and trying to improve the feature in the future. » Crossplay will be available between PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and the Xbox Series X / S.
In case you haven’t heard, Overwatch 2 will change the formula with 5v5 matches and one less tank on launch.
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