In the two short months since launch, Apex Legends‘ popularity has exploded on an unprecedented scale. Despite little pre-release fanfare, the battle royale almost immediately shot straight to the top of Twitch’s viewership charts, even beating out Epic Games’ gargantuan Fortnite to claim the top spot. Since then, of course, the new game smell has somewhat worn off, though Apex has found itself sitting in a comfortable second place behind its competitor with a bright future to come.
Though its inaugural Battle Pass attracted criticism for a lack of meaningful content, the addition of new character Octane (with more on the way) is an early indication that Respawn is in it for the long haul and Kings Canyon regulars should expect the developer to only up the ante with a mix of surprising and much-requested new features. One such item on the latter list, no doubt, is the prospect of cross-platform play. With games like Rocket League and Fortnite itself bridging the gap between consoles, it’s been a matter of when, rather than if, Respawn plans to follow suit.
The developer has so far avoided providing a decisive answer on the subject, but recent comments by Apex Legends project lead Drew McCoy appear to suggest it’s something the team is actively looking into. As part of an informal Q&A session with WIRED where McCoy answers queries from the community, he said, in response to the question of cross-console play that “Cross-play is something we really care about and are looking into. We know that people have friends on all sorts of platforms and that you really want to go to the arena and get some wins together, so stay tuned.”
It’s important to note that, while Respawn might be looking into the prospect of cross-platform play, the eventual outcome could simply be out of its hands. Issues between platform holders preventing as such have occurred in the past, so this is, for now at least, not a guarantee. Regardless, expect further details to surface in the near future.