Fans of Borderlands 3 have something to look forward to this year, it seems: after a long wait, it appears crossplay functionality is finally coming to the game. Things aren't quite perfect, though, and it's looking like some fans may be locked out of crossplay for the time being.
The news comes from Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford, who took to Twitter today to make a somewhat double-edged announcement. According to Pitchford, while an update for Borderlands 3 "that includes full crossplay support across all platforms" is ready to roll out, the team is apparently being required "by the publisher" to remove crossplay support for PlayStation consoles for certification.
This will come as a disappointment to those playing the game on PS4 and PS5 who were hoping to team up with their friends on other platforms, and it's not yet fully clear who's to blame here. The "publisher" to which Pitchford refers in his tweet could just as easily refer to 2K Games, the game's publisher, or Sony itself, which of course manages the certification process of PlayStation games and curates the PlayStation store. Whichever entity was ultimately responsible for the decision, the crux of the matter is almost certainly related to the recent reveal that Sony requires developers to pay for crossplay support.
That particular bombshell was dropped over the course of the Epic vs Apple legal battle, where it came out that Sony, a company famously resistant to crossplay in the past, would habitually charge extra for crossplay games that earned more than 15% of their revenue on non-Sony consoles. So while it's possible that Sony might have directly requested the removal of crossplay from Borderlands 3's upcoming update, what seems more likely is that 2K was unwilling to pay extra on top of the already significant costs of the certification process for the patch.
Whether that choice was the right one for the company is tough to say. Attempts to stop costs from spiraling are perfectly understandable, but crossplay is becoming undeniably more common and more desirable among gamers these days. Some of the biggest and most popular games of this generation feature crossplay, including Fortnite, Minecraft, Among Us, and Call of Duty: Warzone, and if 2K has chosen not to include it for a significant chunk of the player base in order to save money in the shorter term, it could be a misstep.
Hopefully 2K and Sony can sort something out eventually, but in the meantime players on other consoles can expect the crossplay patch to drop soon. Before long, Xbox and PC players alike will be able to frolic around solving the mysteries of Pandora hand-in-hand, but, as things currently stand, PlayStation owners may have to stay in their own little enclave.
Borderlands 3 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.