Borderlands 3 Cross-Play Blocked on PS4 and PS5

Gearbox Software is preparing to push an update for looter shooter Borderlands 3, enabling cross-platform play across all platforms, but it seems that’s not going to happen as planned after all. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford recently took to Twitter to confirm that a full cross-play support patch for the game is being prepared, but there’s a catch. It seems cross-play is being blocked on PS5 and PS4.

Pitchford explains that “for certification” purposes, Gearbox has been “required by the publisher” – which, in this case, would be 2K Games – to remove cross-play support for Borderlands 3 on all PlayStation consoles. Pitchford hasn’t elaborated further as to what the exact reason is.

Sony’s aversion to cross-play is well known at this point. Even though more and more games support cross-play on PlayStation now, recently emerged information has shown that developers still have to jump through additional hoops for this purpose. Epic Games, for instance, had to pay Sony an additional sum for cross-play in Fortnite on PlayStation.

Of course, we don’t know for sure if cross-play being pulled from Borderlands 3 on PS5 and PS4 has anything to do with that. We’ll keep you updated as more information comes our way, so stay tuned.

Good news or bad news first? Good News: An update for Borderlands 3 has been prepared for release that includes full crossplay support across all platforms. Bad News: For certification, we have been required by the publisher to remove crossplay support for PlayStation consoles.

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) May 27, 2021