Apex Legends will soon get cross-platform play on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One, developer Respawn Entertainment confirmed Thursday. The oft-requested feature will go into beta testing on those platforms on Oct. 6, including on Origin for PC, with cross-play support for the Steam version coming later.
Cross-platform play will be enabled by default, Respawn said, but players can opt out of the feature. The studio warned that players who disable cross-play will only be matched against each other, which runs the risk of “making your queue times very very long.”
Respawn did not mention the Nintendo Switch version of Apex Legends, which was announced in June and confirmed to be part of the developer’s cross-platform plans, in Thursday’s announcement.
Cross-progression — gameplay progress carrying over across all platforms for the free-to-play battle royale game — will not be available. “While we do believe this is a valuable feature, it’s unfortunately not available for Apex Legends at this time,” Respawn said in a blog post. “However, we will talk more about this at our Steam launch later in the year.”
Respawn’s implementation of cross-play for Apex Legends will matchmake console players with console players, and PC players with PC players. However, Respawn said that if an “Xbox One or Playstation 4 player and PC player party up together, they will be put into PC matches. This ensures that the console games don’t have PC players in them, but still allows for the console player to play with their PC friend if they opt-in.”
Respawn is also launching a two-week Collection Event called Aftermarket on Oct. 6. Apex Legends will get new event-themed cosmetics and a new mode called Flashpoint, which will spawn bubbles on the map (called Flashpoints) that will regenerate players’ health and shields. Players will congregate — and clash with each other — on those Flashpoints as the circle closes in on them.
More details on Flashpoint and the Aftermarket Collection Event, as well as specifics on cross-play matchmaking, are available at EA’s Apex Legends website.
