Why Every Multiplayer Game Needs a Crossplay Label

"Crossplay supported" means nothing

You see it on a Steam page or a PlayStation store listing. "Crossplay supported." Two words that should answer the question but somehow don't. Crossplay between which platforms? PC and PS5? Console only? Does it include Switch? Is it full crossplay for all modes or just specific playlists?

The store page doesn't say. The developer's FAQ hasn't been updated since launch. The community page has three conflicting answers from 2024. You end up on some Reddit thread from last year trying to figure out whether your friend on Xbox can actually play with you on PC.

This happens constantly. And it's absurd.

The problem is worse than vague labels

It's not just unclear labeling. The information is often flat-out wrong.

Some games launch without crossplay, add it six months later, and never update their store page. The listing still says "online multiplayer" without mentioning that crossplay is now live. So people skip over it, assuming they can't play with friends on other platforms.

Other games go the opposite direction. They launch with crossplay, then quietly drop support for certain platform pairs. The store page still says "crossplay supported" because nobody went back to change it. You buy the game, invite your friend, and discover it doesn't work anymore.

Then there's the partial crossplay situation. A game might support PC-to-Xbox crossplay but not PC-to-PS5. That's a legitimate technical constraint, but calling it "crossplay supported" without specifying the actual pairs is misleading. Your PS5 friend sees the label, buys the game, and finds out they can't join your PC lobby.

What a real label would look like

The gaming industry already has standards for communicating things to players. ESRB ratings tell you about content. PEGI does the same in Europe. Multiplayer player counts appear on store pages, even if they're buried. Why is there no equivalent for crossplay?

A proper crossplay label would show:

• Which platform pairs support crossplay (PC + PS5, PC + Xbox, PS5 + Xbox, etc.)
• Whether crossplay is full (all modes) or partial (certain playlists or modes only)
• When crossplay support was last verified or updated

That's it. Three pieces of information. It wouldn't be hard to implement. Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo all have metadata systems that could support it. The data exists somewhere in the publisher's documentation. It just never makes it to the consumer-facing page.

Why publishers don't do it

The cynical answer is that vague labels sell more copies. If a store page says "crossplay supported," a PS5 player might buy the game assuming it works with their PC friend. By the time they find out it's console-only crossplay, the refund window might have closed.

The more charitable answer is that crossplay status changes. A game might add PS5 crossplay in a patch and the marketing team doesn't update every store listing. Maintaining accurate per-platform-pair labels across every storefront takes effort that doesn't directly generate revenue.

Neither answer is good enough. Players deserve to know what they're buying.

What we're doing about it

We can't force publishers to fix their store pages. But we can track the information ourselves.

On PickThe.Games, crossplay is tracked per platform pair. Instead of a single "yes" or "no," each game shows whether PC-to-PS5 works, whether PC-to-Xbox works, whether PS5-to-Xbox works, and so on. You can browse games by specific crossplay combinations, like PC and PS5 or PS5 and Xbox, and see only the games where that pair is confirmed.

It's not perfect. Crossplay data is hard to verify and changes over time. But it's a lot more useful than "crossplay supported" with no context.

If you're tired of guessing, check the crossplay lists before your next purchase. Or set up a board for your group and let it filter automatically based on everyone's platforms.