Last week, Sony decided to bite the bullet and trial cross-platform play on Fortnite. Many developers and fans alike have been asking for true cross-platform play across all consoles, but perhaps none have been quite so vocal as Psyonix. Rocket League cross-platform play has been in the game since day one in a limited fashion, but the Psyonix CEO, Dave Hagewood, has been requesting it across all platforms since the start. Now, however, things might be looking up for Rocket League, but the CEO has said that Psyonix can’t make it happen by themselves.
Hagewood took to Reddit and explained the situation to his fans in a lengthy post. He argues that “cross play across all consoles is a subject that is near and dear to [his] heart.” As of writing, Rocket League cross-platform play differs depending on what you play it on. If you play on PS4, for example, you can play with and against PC owners. If you’re playing on Xbox One, however, you can play with PC and Nintendo Switch owners. Hagewood wants it so that everyone who owns a copy of Rocket League can play with and against anyone, no matter what machine you’re playing it on.
“We built Rocket League to be a cross-platform game from the very beginning. It has been a Psyonix mandate that our technology, processes, and policies must always comply with this effort and we have worked tirelessly to ensure it. We hoped that other developers would join us in this effort and they did. We hoped that gamers would cry out for more and they did.”
Despite his intentions, however, Hagewood has admitted that “cross-platform play is not something Psyonix and Rocket League can do on its own. It takes the substantial cooperation and coordination of many partners, most notably the platform holders themselves.” With the recent move to allow for cross-platform play on Fortnite, however, Hagewood argues that things are looking up: “It is with the greatest joy that I can now acknowledge that all the major consoles are making progress towards a truly all-platform cross-platform play experience!”
Hagewood is “beyond excited”, and hopes that all-platform cross-platform play can come to Rocket League, but that “there are still many factors, some of which take time, that means we have to have some patience.”
