Upcoming co-op shooter Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands will get cross-play throughout all platforms, Gearbox introduced yesterday. That may have appeared like a forgone conclusion within the yr 2022, however it marks the primary time Borderlands customers from PlayStation and Xbox will get to play collectively.
“Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands will ship on March 25 with full cross play for all platforms at launch, together with PlayStation,” Gearbox Leisure president Randy Pitchford wrote on Twitter last night. “Unbelievable work from the engineers at Gearbox Software program with due to our companions at 2k Video games and 1st events, together with Sony, for working collectively on this.”
Like previous Borderlands video games, the main focus of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a co-op marketing campaign the place teams of as much as 4 gamers take down bosses in pursuit of extra highly effective gear. The missions and gameplay this time round are D&D-inspired, making multiplayer an excellent larger a part of the expertise, so it’s an enormous deal that the sport will enable gamers from completely different platforms to matchmake collectively. And it’s a reminder that Sony has traditionally been the one dragging its toes on the problem.
This, nonetheless, was not the case when Borderlands 3 got here out in 2019. Two years after Epic Video games accidently made Fortnite briefly cross-play between PS4 and Xbox One, and one yr after Sony formally got here out in lukewarm assist of the idea, Gearbox’s loot shooter launched with out it. When cross-play lastly did get added final yr, PS4 and PS5 weren’t included, defeating a lot of the purpose (you can nonetheless matchmake between PC and Xbox). It’s not clear what precisely has modified within the months since, however Pitchford wrote in a follow-up tweet that he now considers full Borderlands 3 cross-play to be “inevitable,” with extra data to return later.
Up to now, Sony has really proposed charging firms further to permit cross-play. That’s what the PlayStation maker initially advised to Epic Video games when it needed to make Fortnite cross-play, in line with courtroom paperwork revealed final yr in Epic v. Apple. “In sure circumstances Epic must pay extra income to Sony,” Sweeney mentioned of the deal throughout final yr’s trial. “If any person have been primarily enjoying on PlayStation, however paying on iPhone then this would possibly set off compensation.”
Years later, cross-play has grow to be the norm for many new on-line multiplayer video games. Whereas there are nonetheless notable holdouts—FIFA and Madden stay platform-locked—style leaders like Name of Responsibility and Battlefield at the moment are firmly platform agnostic. Even some previous video games are persevering with to get up to date with it. Ubisoft introduced simply final week that 2017 medieval fighter For Honor would lastly go cross-play when its Misplaced Horizons replace goes dwell this week.
