Bethesda’s Pete Hines, Vice President of the giant gaming company, surprisingly commented on the publisher’s upcoming multiplayer spin-off title in the Fallout universe, Fallout 76. According to Hines, Fallout 76 will not support any form of cross-play functionality and furthermore there are no plans to add such a feature.
Folks, chill. I work with a lot of devs and games for whom this is important going forward.
Fallout 76 does not support crossplay, for a number of reasons. I have no idea if it ever will. But I assure you it is not on our radar right now as we focus on B.E.T.A. and Launch.
— Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) September 26, 2018
This news comes as quite the surprise as Bethesda themselves are one of the more prominent proponents of cross-play. At the height of the cross-play controversy, surrounding Sony’s PlayStation 4 excluding full cross-play, Bethesda stated that their multiplayer card game The Elder Scrolls: Legends would only release on platforms which allowed all players across every platform to play together. Bethesda’s firm stance on The Elder Scrolls: Legends was interpreted as more than just a per-game basis decision, and was widely received as a passive pressure on Sony to reverse their limited cross-play policy.
Yesterday, the situation drastically changed however, when Sony announced that, starting with the massively popular Fortnite, PS4 is going to allow “extended” cross-play aka full cross-play between platforms. The pressure on Sony by gamers led to significant bad press, with major non-gaming news outlets even reporting on the issue. There’s little doubt that opposition within the gaming industry as well, played a role in Sony backtracking from their archaic original policy.
It’s exactly here where Bethesda’s previous statements were lauded among gamers, who welcomed a major game publisher and developer to stand publicly against Sony. It’s only natural that this previous behavior led many to believe Bethesda would follow up by including full cross-play with their upcoming Fallout 76. A massively hyped multiplayer game in the arguably most popular post-apocalyptic RPG franchise at the moment.
Fans have been hammering Pete Hines via Twitter, after he congratualted Sony for their policy reversal, pressing Hines to disclose that Fallout 76 would also benefit from Sony’s decision. Those expectations are crushed as of today, after Pete Hines harshly slammed down any hope for Fallout 76 cross-play. Not only will Fallout 76 not have cross-play between every platform, no platform will have any cross-play functionality among each other.
A very shocking revelation, as Fallout 76 is heavily multiplayer-focused and cross-play seems extremely fitting for such an experience. Hines was clear to squash any immediate hopes that Fallout 76 will get cross-play at launch, but he still left a door open for the post-launch time frame. So, there’s still a chance. Just not soon.
In the mean time, make sure to watch the official game intro video for Fallout 76, which sets the mood nicely for the beta, starting October 23rd on Xbox One and one week later for PS4 and PC. Fallout 76 releases this Novemeber 14th for PC; PS4 and Xbox One.
