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Fallout 76 is currently experiencing a renaissance on Steam, not least due to the Fallout TV series on Amazon Prime. After all, the title is already almost six years old.
In an interview, Todd Howard, chief developer at Bethesda Game Studios, explains why the studio decided against the often requested crossplay feature – and what the team focuses on instead.
Cross progression more important than crossplay
In the conversation with Kinda Funny Games It's also about the Fallout series, among other things. You can watch the whole video here, but don't worry, we'll summarize the relevant points for you afterwards:
Link to YouTube content
Later in the conversation (from minute 46:00) the question comes up as to how Howard thinks about crossplay for Fallout 76. The Bethesda chief developer replies:
We'll keep looking at it, but [Fallout 76] was not designed for this from the start. This also has something to do with server and database storage.
Cross-what? A brief explanation of terms: Crossplay refers to cross-platform interaction. Game fans on PC and consoles can play together despite their different systems without encountering technical hurdles.
This is immediately followed by the question of whether crossplay will ever become standard in video games. After a long pause for thought, Howard replies:
For us, cross-progression is more important than cross-play and we differentiate between these two things. We would like to have both, of course. That's something we're considering, but I would say it's like [Fallout 76] was designed from the start is a technical challenge.
We don't say we do or don't do something. We'll look at it and see what impact it has [die Spieler] will have.
Cross-what?² We won't leave you hanging here either: Cross-progression is the cross-platform saving of progress in a game. So if you play Fallout 76 on your PC, save it and then switch to Xbox, you can access your saves there and continue playing immediately.
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The focus on cross-progression is further expanded upon by Todd Howard:
I think, […] [das Thema] is very important and something we'll be putting a lot of emphasis on in our future games – especially cross-progression – to ensure that when you resume a game, you're able to play whatever screen you're on with your character and the just keep doing what you've done.
In this context, Todd Howard refers to Starfield, which is also a good example of how well cross-progression works. Players would be able to jump between different platforms because the game was designed that way from the start.
For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that crossplay would make no sense at all in the majority of Bethesda games. The reason is simply a lack of multiplayer mode. Currently, Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls Online are the only in-house titles produced by the development studio that support collaborative play.