Since launch, Apex Legends players have been begging for cross-platform play across Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Despite being announced as a key feature when the game released, Apex Legends still doesn’t have a full crossplay feature. That said, it’s currently running a cross-platform beta, allowing players on Origin, Xbox One, and PS4 to team up in play. Before the feature launches fully — hopefully later this year — here’s everything we know about Apex Legends cross-platform support.
Further reading
Is Apex Legends cross-platform?
Apex Legends is currently in a cross-platform beta, which started on October 6 with the season 6 Aftermarket Collection Event. The trial run is meant to gather player data and work out bugs before the crossplay system, hopefully, launches later this year. The system in Apex Legends is simple: Players can team up with others on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 regardless of the platform they’re on. The key word here is “can.”
If you’re leading a party, you can invite players from other platforms to join your party. Crossplay is enabled by default, so all you need to do is add your teammate as a friend and invite them to your party. If your party consists of only players on consoles, you’ll be placed into a match with other console players. If, however, your party has a least one player on PC, your entire party will be placed in a PC match.
The same is true for matchmaking. Cross-platform matchmaking is turned on by default, but PC players and console players are placed into separate queues. In the crossplay announcement, Respawn justified this restriction, saying “We want to ensure that keyboard and mouse PC players are not being matched against console players, for reasons that should be obvious.”
You can disengage crossplay from the Settings menu if you’d prefer to remain on the same platform, although Respawn discourages this. If you disable crossplay, you’ll only queue with players on your same platform, resulting in a small selection of potential opponents since enabled crossplay is the default.
We’d also like to point out that you can use in-game voice chat with cross-platform parties.
Is there cross-progression in Apex Legends?
Although Apex Legends has crossplay beta available, it doesn’t feature cross-progression. Respawn refers to cross-progression as a “valuable feature” and claims that it will again bring up the subject when Apex Legends premieres on Steam later this year. At the moment, nothing is consistent between platforms, including character progress, unlocks, and in-game currency and cosmetics. If you start on a new platform, you’re essentially starting from nothing all over again.
We’d expect to see cross-progression in the near future, but we doubt it will work for everything. As evidenced by Fortnite and Dauntless, an in-game currency probably won’t hold across Apex Legends platforms. Typically, in-game currency only functions within its own digital marketplace. For instance, Fortnite’s V-Bucks only work on the platform where you buy them—if you used PSN to purchase them, you could only use them on PS4.
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