Crossplay Should Be Optional For Multiplayer Games

Crossplay is a hot topic for many modern multiplayer games. It is a feature that allows players from different consoles or PCs to play together without restrictions.

The primary goal of crossplay is to merge the player base, which is divided by different gaming platforms. And while it is successful at it, it brings about a fair share of drawbacks.

What would be the drawbacks of merging fans from all gaming platforms? The answer is simple.

Gaming on a PC is quite flexible compared to a Playstation or an Xbox. You can mod the games, use macros, and even use hacks on a PC.

However, that isn’t the case with gaming consoles. Gaming consoles are pretty straightforward and limiting. They don’t offer as much flexibility as a PC does.

Major Takeaways:

• Crossplay between console and PC affects the quality of gameplay.
• Shooting games are a bad choice for crossplay.
• Optional crossplay can fix many issues.
• Cheaters and hackers are running rampant on PC servers.
• Crossplay helps with reviving and sustaining the player base.

Remember PUBG? The battle royale game’s multiplayer scene was overridden by hackers a couple of years ago. It was literally impossible for a non-hacker player to play normally before the developers began to crack down on the hackers.

Now, while all of this was happening in the game’s PC version, it was restricted to PC only. You could play and enjoy the game just fine on any other console due to the absence of hackers.

Enabling crossplay between PC and consoles in cases where such a situation could arise would make the gaming experience worse for gamers instead of improving it, as we get to see with Call of Duty: Warzone 2.

All of that aside, crossplay for FPS or shooting games in general between PC and consoles is a bad idea to begin with. PC offers better control and aiming compared to consoles. If there is a shooting game that offers crossplay between PC and consoles, you can just ask their player base about their opinion on crossplay, and you’ll get your answers.

Crossplay isn’t always bad. For games with a decreasing player base, enabling crossplay might be the only solution to revive it. There are games with only a handful of players on PlayStation and Xbox but many on PC.

Crossplay between PC and consoles might actually be okay for shooting and battle royale games if the game has excellent cheat detection and anti-hacking policies. That would allow you to play with your friends without any platform restrictions.

In such cases, crossplay might actually be the thing to go for so that console players don’t have to wait for hours to find multiplayer matches. Crossplay like this will bring more new players to the game if they see that the game has an active player base.

But, it should also be considered that not everyone wants to play with PC gamers, even if they have to wait hours to find matches on the same console.

The only way to fix this situation is to have crossplay as an optional feature. Most modern video games have crossplay enabled, and there’s no way to turn it off.

For example, if you’re a console player trying out a new game that has no way of turning crossplay off, you may get matched with players playing on a keyboard and mouse instead of someone using a gamepad just like yourself. You’d start thinking that maybe the game is too difficult and may even consider dropping it altogether.

Sometimes, we want to have this feature enabled, like when playing with friends with different consoles. Not having crossplay for your favorite game might stop you and your buddies from playing with or against each other.

Having the option to control whether you want to turn the crossplay feature on and off would be great. It would add to the user experience and make the game actually fun to play for most people.

It is also an effective solution for games with small player bases on gaming consoles. Anyone who is okay with playing with players from PC or other consoles can enable the optional crossplay feature, while everyone against it can leave it turned off to play with other console buddies.

In the end, if the developers are going to give a game crossplay, they should make it optional. That way, everyone will be happy with it. Otherwise, a forced crossplay might ruin players’ experience from all platforms.

In the comments below, let us know your thoughts and opinions about crossplay being an optional feature in multiplayer games.