No, crossplay isn’t going to ruin Apex Legends

Since Respawn Entertainment announced back in June that it will bring cross-platform multiplayer to its free-to-play battle royale game Apex Legends, some members of the community have expressed reservations about the feature. One of the biggest points of contention has been that pitting PC players, who use keyboard-and-mouse controls, would have an unfair advantage over those on consoles. Now a developer on the game has come out to reassure players that the studio has a plan in place.

Jake Smullin, a software engineer at Respawn, recently issued a new statement on the matter via TikTok, because that’s apparently the world we live in now. The video has now been set to private—perhaps because Smullin was not authorized to make any such announcement—but DBLTAP is currently hosting a mirror.

“Wanted to clear soemthing [sic] up about crossplay. You will only be in PC crossplay lobbies if you have a PC player on your team. Have been seeing lots of console players worrying about this but don’t. Everyone should be excited,” Smulling wrote. “So no more ‘Not crossplay 😭 PC is gonna dominate us.'”

The move is hardly a surprising one. Just about every game that’s implemented crossplay between consoles and PC has implemented similar guardrails. By locking this side of crossplay behind mixed-player parties, Apex Legends should still let you play with any of your friends on any platform but won’t disadvantage players without their advance knowledge. While it may be a little bit frustrating that console players who want to team up with PC players won’t be on an even playing field, it’s far better than any Wild West alternative.

Apex Legends is currently available on PlayStaton 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC via Origin. The game is slated to launch on Steam—with some nifty exclusive gun charms—and on Nintendo Switch later this year. Last we heard, crossplay is also slated to go live before the end of 2020.