Apex Legends crossplay on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on October 6
Respawn’s battle royale Apex Legends is getting its long-awaited crossplay feature next week, the developer announced on Thursday. Crossplay will arrive on October 6th alongside the new limited-time “Aftermarket Collection” event.
Respawn Entertainment will enable cross-platform play in a beta test for its popular Apex Legends battle royale shooter on October 6. Players on PlayStation, Xbox, and Origin (EA Desktop App on the PC) may join cross-play or continue on platform-exclusive servers.
The feature, coming back for the first time in June, is starting in beta for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC platforms, meaning that three groups of players have been playing since the 2019 launch of the game for the first time and playing against each other Will be able to . However, it cannot be cross-progressed, which means that you can take your console account with you to PC or vice versa, as you can in games like Destiny 2, Fortnite and Warzone.
“Since the launch of Apex Legends, cross-play has been one of the most requested features from our players who want the ability to play with their friends on other platforms. During the cross-play beta, players will have full access to cross-play functionality while we collect data, test the feature at scale, and most importantly, listen to you, the fans, for feedback,” explains game director Chad Grenier.
Crossplay will be turned on by default, Respawn says, but only in such a way that PS4 and Xbox One players will be grouped together in lobbies with one another. If players opt in to a PC-console lobby by grouping together with a PC friend playing via EA’s Origin client, then they’ll be placed in PC servers. (Respawn says Steam players will be supported as well when the Steam version of the game launches later this year.) Respawn is highly encouraging players not to disable crossplay, however, as doing so may increase queue times.
“If you wish to disable cross-play altogether, you can disable cross platform play in the settings menu. Doing so will only put you into matches with other users on the same platform, who have also disabled cross platform play,” Grenier says. “This has a high chance of making your queue times very very long, as we anticipate that most users will have cross-play enabled given its default state of ‘enabled’ and the requests for the feature from so many players. We highly recommend leaving cross platform play enabled to ensure the best experience possible.”
Respawn said that it wanted to ensure that keyboard and mouse PC players are not being matched against console players, to ensure fair play.
If, however, an Xbox One or PlayStation 4 player and a PC player party up together, they will be put into PC matches. This ensures that the console games don’t have PC players in them, but still allows for the console player to play with their PC friend if they opt-in.
Flash points are special because they revive your health and shield you over time to heal and prepare to counter in a flash. These areas are supposed to create large-scale multi-squad fights that bring the spirit of a team's death to Apex Legends along with health uplift.
Respawn is enabling a universal in-game friend search feature for finding players and creating parties across platforms. As for cross-progression, Grenier says it will have more to share about that feature closer to the launch of its official Steam version later this year. Apex Legends is also slated to come to Nintendo Switch at some point this fall, but it’s unclear if Respawn will enable crossplay for that platform, too.
