Aliens: Fireteam Elite caught a lot of attention when it was revealed back in March. Now, the developers at Cold Iron Studios have started revealing more information about Aliens: Fireteam Elite for fans ahead of its upcoming release.
For those who don't know, Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a third-person co-op shooter that sees players shooting their way through hordes of Xenomorphs as they run through missions. The game takes place 25 years after the original trilogy of movies and focuses on action gameplay rather than the survival horror of other recent Alien games like Alien: Isolation. The game has many co-op shooter fans excited, especially as some have compared Aliens: Fireteam Elite with other juggernauts of the genre like Left 4 Dead.
Now, Cold Iron Studios CEO Craig Zinkievich says that the game will not support crossplay. Zinkievich made the announcement while speaking with Gamespot recently, and said that while the feature may be added in the future, there are no plans for Aliens: Fireteam Elite to support crossplay right now. However, Zinkievich did reveal that the game will be cross-gen allowing PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 players to enter lobbies together, and the same for Xbox consoles. Since the game is intended to be played repeatedly with friends, hopefully, any players who were intrigued by Aliens: Fireteam Elite's gameplay trailer have friends on the same platform as them.
Of course, if players don't have friends on the same platform as them, Aliens: Fireteam Elite does feature full matchmaking as well as AI bots that will help fill out a squad if players need it. Zinkievich did not say why the game had no plans to support crossplay, but the announcement does come as crossplay has started becoming a more common feature for multiplayer games. Games like Borderlands 3 and Call of Duty: Warzone have all implemented crossplay, although Epic CEO Tim Sweeney recently revealed that the company has to pay PlayStation to keep crossplay enabled in Fortnite.
It is definitely possible that Aliens: Fireteam Elite will add crossplay sometime after its release, although it may follow in the footsteps of games like Gang Beasts or Borderlands 3 by excluding PlayStation from its crossplay. Crossplay has largely been a very well-received feature in the games that feature it, so hopefully, platforms will continue to be comfortable with the feature. Then, multiplayer titles can continue to implement it so that gamers can play with all of their friends regardless of their chosen platform.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite releases on August 24 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Gamespot