Battlefield 6 won’t include console-only crossplay after all, despite reports to the contrary.
Eurogamer reported yesterday, based on an interview from IGN with Battlefield 6 senior combat designer Matthew Nickerson and technical director Christian Buhl, that console players across PlayStation and Xbox would be able to play together without PC players.
It now transpires this is not the case, as per a clarification from EA to Dexerto. EA has not responded to Eurogamer’s request for comment.
So how will crossplay work in Battlefield 6?
Nickerson was at least correct in how crossplay will work for console players when the toggle is turned on. Here, PlayStation and Xbox players will be prioritised before PC players are added to fill a lobby.
However, if crossplay is turned off, players will only play with others on their current platform. As such, Xbox and PlayStation players won’t be able to play together exclusively without PC players. They also won’t be able to party up with or join players on other platforms.
This will be disappointing for fans who had hoped to play across platforms, but without PC players.
That’s because cheating tends to be more prevalent on PC, something console players are keen to avoid.
“Obviously, cheating is much more prevalent on PC than on console, but we are taking a lot of effort, putting a lot of work into prioritising fighting against cheaters,” said Buhl. “We’ve turned on secure boot. We’ve got Javelin, our new anti-cheat system, which is required in order to play.
“So, we’re doing a lot on the PC side to clamp down on cheating as much as possible. We have a whole team within Battlefield dedicated to anti-cheat, which includes engineers, analysts who are reviewing things and banning players, and figuring out what the latest cheats are. We have another whole dedicated team at EA to anti-cheat that we work closely with. That’s what I can say. Now, we can never win against cheaters, right? Cheaters will always be there. It’s a never-ending cat-and-mouse game. I can’t promise that there will be zero cheaters if you’re playing against PC players. That’s just simply not possible, but I can say that we are being extremely aggressive. We see this as critical to the success of – to the health of – the game.”
Battlefield 6 will be out on 10th October across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, but don’t expect a Switch 2 version any time soon.
