If you’ve been casually following the gaming industry and checking out upcoming video games for the past decade or so, you’ve no doubt heard the term cross-platform come up. You might’ve put together that it has something to do with multiplayer games, such as Marvel Rivals or Fortnite, but you may not know exactly what it all means. Now that it is rarer to hear of a major multiplayer game that isn’t cross-platform, it is better to know what it means for you and how it is impacting your gaming. There are a few layers to what cross-platform means in gaming, so I will break it all down so you know what exactly it is, why it is important, and maybe if you would rather turn it off in certain games.
When people talk about cross-platform support, the component they mainly focus on is crossplay. Crossplay means exactly what it sounds like: games that can be played online between different platforms, aka consoles and PC. Odds are any current multiplayer game you’re playing today is a cross-platform game since it has become standard practice for all major releases. Up until the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch generations, there was no option for someone on a PlayStation to play with or against an Xbox player, even if they were playing the same game, with rare exception. While there were some murmurings about crossplay being possible, it wasn’t until September 2017 when Fortnite suddenly allowed players on PS4 and Xbox One to play together after a “configuration issue.” However, this opened the doors for Fortnite to officially launch crossplay as a permanent feature in March 2018. After that, more and more games followed suit and began implementing or launching with full crossplay support to allow players to join up with their friends regardless of platform.
The other aspect to know about cross-platform is cross-progression. This is still less common than crossplay, but is very common among free-to-play games. Cross-progression allows you to start playing a game on one platform, say the PS5, and then continue from where you left off on PC, Xbox, or any other platform the game is on.
Before cross-platform support became the standard, multiplayer games died off much more quickly with segmented audiences. Instead of having a player base of everyone who purchased the game to find matches with, you would only be able to play with those on your console. Now that games are trying to be live services and host massive servers full of players, segmenting the community by platform would make the experience worse for everyone.
The one potential downside to cross-platform support is when one platform, typically PC, has an advantage over the others. This isn’t common, but it can impact certain games. Thankfully, nearly all cross-platform games include the option to disable crossplay if you wish.
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”