Sony is holding up crossplay on Bethesda’s upcoming multiplayer survival game, Fallout 76.
Are we surprised? Not really. Sony has been a stick in the mud about crossplay since the topic started making waves last year. While Microsoft and Nintendo have become all chummy with their respective platforms, allowing players in such iconic games as Fortnite and Minecraft talk and game with each other, Sony has adamantly refused to join in on the fun.
With Fallout 76 set to be a huge blockbuster release later this year, game developer giant Bethesda thought that they might succeed where everyone else failed and convince Sony to allow crossplay on their upcoming multiplayer game. Unfortunately, they’ve been met with the same stagnant answer as before.
In an interview with German games site GameStar, game director Thomas Howard said that Sony is "not as helpful as everyone would like" when it comes to crossplay. He declined to provide any specifics as to why Sony is once again blocking the possibility of true cross-platform gaming but said that Sony executives are the real stumbling block and not any incompatibilities with technology.
"We would love to do [crossplay], but right now that's not possible,” Howard said.
Sony’s reluctance to get on board is quite confusing to Howard, who sees it as "a big trend in the games industry.” Microsoft and Nintendo have since pioneered the practice with allowing the biggest game in the world, Minecraft, to be played on both Xbox One, Windows PC, Mac OS, and Nintendo Switch.
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They even turned it into a marketing gimmick that seemed to take direct aim at Sony.
However, Sony may finally be buckling under the increasing pressure of gamers demanding crossplay on the PlayStation 4 platform. During a Gamelab conference in Spain, Eurogamer asked Sony Interactive America president and CEO Shawn Layden if they were aware of the growing outcry from passionate games pleading for crossplay support.
"We're hearing it,” he said. “We're looking at a lot of the possibilities. You can imagine that the circumstances around that affect a lot more than just one game. I'm confident we'll get to a solution which will be understood and accepted by our gaming community, while at the same time supporting our business."
This isn’t the first time Sony has offered platitudes rather than a real plan, but with any luck, we’ll finally whittle them down into accepting crossplay as the new reality of gaming.
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