Fighting Games and Cross-platform Play
And why don’t more games feature it?
I was very happy to see that my most recent article got the circulation it did. It didn’t blow up on Twitter or anything, but it was the top post on r/Fighters and r/GuiltyGear for a few days and it even made it onto Sajam’s stream for like a minute. Good rollback is like a good sandwich… In the comments of my article, a few people brought up some fairly good points, albeit phrased very simply: While pushing developers to add rollback netcode to their titles is all well and good, and the impact it has on unifying the player-base is undeniable, there is another important feature along the same lines that many fighting games are still lacking.
Cross-platform play, often shortened to crossplay, is the term for the feature that allows players on different platforms to play the same title together. An Apex Legends player in the Origin PC launcher can queue up and be thrown into a match against other PC players on Steam, as well as players on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. In the same vein, a Street Fighter V player on Steam can play against PS4 opponents. Games with crossplay networks also often allow players who own multiple versions of a title to retain their progress across every version via cloud saves. Crossplay is a highly demanded feature not only in fighting games, but across all genres, and titles like Fortnite can attribute their universal success to their ability to let players connect with friends and opponents on a wide variety of consoles and platforms.
Crossplay’s utility makes it a very appealing feature for many players, for obvious reasons- namely because of how consumer friendly it is. Instead of deliberating over which platform to purchase a particular game on or coordinating which version to buy with their friends and other communities, they can just grab the game on whatever platform they prefer and have it be compatible with everyone else who owns it. If a friend buys a game on the ‘wrong’ platform or doesn’t have access to the one you prefer, either you’re forced to buy a game you already own again or you shrug and give up on playing with them. As more fighting games get ported from consoles to PC platforms like Steam, the inclusion of crossplay becomes a more widely demanded feature. Guilty Gear Strive, for instance, will be launching simultaneously on PS4, PS5 and Steam, but while there will be crossplay at launch between the PSN consoles, Steam players will be locked out of the ecosystem until a later undisclosed date. Other games in Arc System Works’ modern library, such as Granblue Fantasy Versus, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, don’t feature crossplay at all and have made no explicit plans for future implementations.
The crusade for crossplay is like the rollback revolution in the sense that it largely stems from many popular Japanese titles lacking the feature, while many Western titles have some sort of crossplay network. Since most big-name fighting game IPs are developed in Japan, this means that a large quantity of these titles launch with fractured player-bases across their launch platforms. While SFV is a major example of a game from a Japanese developer that features crossplay, fellow giant Tekken 7 doesn’t support crossplay between XB1, PS4, and Steam. Meanwhile, many Western titles with varying scales of IP recognition and development budget feature crossplay. Killer Instinct features crossplay between XB1, Xbox GamePass, and Steam (but only for unranked play) and Mortal Kombat 11 features crossplay between XB1 and PS4 (but not Steam.) Power Rangers: Battle for The Grid and Fantasy Strike, on the other hand, feature full crossplay across every platform the game is out on- Nintendo Switch, PS4, Steam, XB1 and Stadia (BFTG,) and PS5 (FS.)
Even among Western developers, however, you might be noticing some inconsistencies with how robust certain crossplay networks are. From player experience, the crossplay in games like MK11 doesn’t even function properly and has a difficult time pairing opponents across both platforms with stability. On the other hand, games with smaller budgets like FS and BFTG have full crossplay for every platform they’re on. So, what exactly is the problem with crossplay, and why do so many fighting games lack the feature? Why does it seem to be so difficult to implement in modern titles?
In last year’s Japan Fighting Game Publisher Roundtable stream, Katsuhiro Harada of Bandai Namco, and Daisuke Ishiwatari of Arc System Works both made different comments about crossplay implementation, along the similar lines of it being difficult to implement. Harada claimed that plans for crossplay between PS4, XB1, and PC for T7 were made, but the console publishers never followed through. Harada also pointed out that creating a unified ID system that allows multiple platforms to communicate with each other is both difficult and expensive. Ishiwatari agreed with Harada’s points and also stated that one of the main issues with crossplay is creating synchronicity across hardware platforms that all operate with different specs and process player inputs in varying ways.
Another issue that developers often face with crossplay implementation focuses on games that receive major updates after launch. There are a few examples of this to be found within fighting games, and a few that can be observed outside of the genre. Skullgirls, for instance, is a multiplatform indie title that doesn’t support crossplay due to the expensive nature of hosting servers that would allow crossplay to function, as well as the difficulties in making sure PC patches launched simultaneously alongside console editions. (Skullgirls, like Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2 and the upcoming GGST, features crossplay between every Sony platform it launched for, but not between Xbox and Steam.) Crossplay for Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was also never implemented for the same reason: Sony’s certification process for balance patches meant that the PS3 version of the title would be locked out of the loop from the PC version, which Valve intended to update frequently. However, these are both examples from prior to 2018, and it’s clear that much has changed with regards to crossplay implementation in popular titles given the success of Epic Games’ Fortnite, which features crossplay across all platforms as of September 2018.
The biggest obstacle in the way of crossplay seems not to be a technical barrier but a bureaucratic one, and the blame allegedly rests heavily on Sony’s shoulders. The evidence for this comes from comments made by Western game studios like Hi-Rez Studios and Chucklefish Games, developing titles outside of the fighting game genre. In a Verge article from 2019, both developers essentially said that crossplay was ready to go for their titles whenever Sony would allow it, but that the console publisher seemed unwilling to enable it for their titles. Finn Brice, the CEO of Chucklefish, even made a statement that crossplay implementation required a “flick of the switch” on Sony’s end. Both statements from Hi-Rez and Chucklefish came hot off the heels of a Game Informer interview that claimed PSN crossplay was “open for business” to any developer who wanted to implement it.
Later that year, Sony reiterated their claim that its crossplay software development kit was open to all developers, but they never elaborated on steps they were taking to make it accessible, nor was it even a focal point of their press release. While Fortnite’s historic approach to crossplay allowing players to face each other regardless of platform seems to have broken some of these barriers, it may be too late for games in development prior to 2019 to take advantage of these innovations. Furthermore, despite Sony allegedly reversing their stance on crossplay development, it’s likely that the publisher is indeed playing favorites with certain high-profile third-party titles. Normally, some readers would be dismissive of Katsuhiro “Tekken 7 is 3” Harada’s statements from earlier about difficulties with online networking code. However, his remarks as paraphrased in this article are corroborated by developers both in and out of the genre, so it’s safe to say there’s an element of truth to his words here.
Unlike rollback, which was a solution for fighting game netcode that existed as early as 2006, crossplay has been an ongoing issue for developers of all titles outside of the genre for the past decade. Between technical barriers, competing terms of service between publishers, the ability to patch and regulate software frequently, and console publishers wanting to retain exclusivity for their platforms, crossplay is oftentimes a feature whose issues are out of the game developers’ hands. No two games have the same type of crossplay solution either: some games like Apex and SFV may require a unifying network ID, like an Origin or CFN account, while others like BFTG don’t require any such ID. [Edit: It’s been brought to my attention by u/vesfear that BFTG does in fact use nWayPlay as its ID infrastructure. Perhaps a better example would be how BFTG’s crossplay also offers progression transfer between platforms via cloud saves while Apex Legends doesn’t.] Some games from AAA developers have very poor crossplay implementations, like MK11, while freeware indie games like FS are praised for their crossplay features.
In May of last year, Epic Games announced the launch of Epic Online Services, a free SDK that would allow any developer to include an Epic-developed crossplay implementation across all platforms and game engines, but with the service being out for less than a year and games like GGST having been in development for several, retroactive implementation seems expensive and unlikely. Time will tell if more fighting games implement crossplay in the future, either at launch or in later development. We know that GGST is striving- pun not intended- towards crossplay between Sony platforms and Steam, likely due in equal part to fan demand and the success other titles have had with their implementation. Hopefully, as more developers become transparent with their player-base and explain the development of online features such as rollback and cross-play, it will be easier to understand whether such features being difficult to implement are due to costly and difficult developer-side processes or publisher-side bureaucratic decision-making.
Ending the article with some editorializing: While I mentioned before that crossplay implementation is expensive, I don’t think this is an especially valuable excuse for fighting games developed by AAA studios. Most big-budget developers are part of multi-million dollar corporations that can afford to spend the money on implementing features like rollback and crossplay, and being able to retain a large player-base long after launch would justify the investment. However, the costs of building crossplay seem different than the costs of rollback. Rollback netcode entails taking precautions to make sure the game engine can hide rollback artifacts; crossplay involves creating a unified account network, systems to ensure platforms with different hardware specs and input methods don’t desync, and potentially investing in servers that allow cross-platform connections to communicate with each other. Despite the disparity in developmental demands, crossplay is indisputably a crucial online feature in the modern era, and much like the rollback revolution, this crusade is a worthwhile cause to carry out.
