We have some good news for PC players (and some scary news for console players). Apex Legends cross-play might be in the works. A recent leak from dataminer That1MiningGuy shows what appear to be strings about cross-play support in the game’s files.
The strings seems to unify player IDs across different platforms: PC, PS4, and Xbox. They also mention “Nucleus,” which happens to be a proprietary EA software facilitating cross-play. We don’t know if Nucleus is currently operational. It was designed a decade ago and there is limited information openly available on it. And even if it’s in use, there is no guarantee Apex Legends will eventually be using it to support cross-play.
https://twitter.com/That1MiningGuy/status/1176156168949047301
That1MiningGuy himself is skeptical, as you can see in his tweet above. There have been no announcements to support the idea of Apex Legends cross-play. However, Respawn hasn’t officially written it off either. In a July interview with Game Informer, Apex project lead Drew McCoy indicated they are in fact big fans of the idea. He stated that they would love to support it eventually. However, at the time they were not ready to tackle the task of implementing it. Perhaps soon enough they will.
Naturally, console players might have some misgivings about the possibility of Apex Legends cross-play. Controller players would objectively be at a disadvantage if they have to face off against players who use keyboard and mouse. Realm Royale‘s solution for this issue is letting players choose whether they join mixed device lobbies or play it safe and get into controller-only lobbies. If cross-play were to eventually come to Apex, more likely than not it would feature a similar option.
Cross-play is getting increasingly common in competitive games. Hi-Rez in particular is leading the charge, recently extending its Realm Royale and Paladins cross-play networks to PS4 and announcing their new hero shooter Rogue Company will support cross-play from launch. Among the many benefits of Apex Legends cross-play would be speeding up matchmaking. The current wait times for ranked mode in particular are punishingly long.
Stay tuned to Daily Esports for more Apex Legends news and content!
Published: Sep 23, 2019 09:14 pm