We’ve seen a whole lot of developers begin to call Sony out on the favouritism they are allegedly exhibiting when it comes to allowing developers to implement cross-platform play with other consoles on PS4. While Fortnite and Rocket League both allow it, Sony’s original announcement was careful in stating that they would only allow “select” games to have the functionality.

And yet, in an interview with Game Informer, PlayStation boss Shawn Layden seemed to refute any such claims, suggesting that Sony does not play favorites, and any developer who wants to implement the feature in their game simply needs to apply with their PlayStation account manager.

“We got to that place in Fortnite and it seems to be going reasonably well, from what I can tell,” he said. “The Rocket League light up will happen soon. People keep saying, “Why doesn’t Sony allow more people to have it?” We’re open for business on this one. All it takes is for publishers and developers who wish to permission it. As ever, just work with your PlayStation account manager, and they will walk you through the steps that we’ve learned through our partnership with Epic on how this works. I don’t believe right now there is any gating factor on that. I think they’re open to make proposals, because the Fortnite thing worked pretty well.”

Someone is very clearly not being entirely upfront in this situation. Sony’s original update on this matter explicitly stated that they will only allow select third party games to enable the functionality, so either the policy changed recently (in the wake of Fortnite’s success with this program, as Layden seems to suggest), or he himself isn’t that familiar with how his company is handling the functionality. Whatever it is, I hope all parties involved figure this thing out soon, so that we can start seeing more cross-platform play in future games.

While Sony allows full cross-platform play in some games on the PS4, such as with Rocket League and Fortnite, they aren’t letting every developer who wants to implement it do it either, unlike Microsoft or Nintendo. We already saw the developers of War Thunder, Gaijin Entertainment, call Sony out on playing favorites with doling out permission for cross-platform play recently. Now, it seems Hi-Rez Studios, the developers of Smite, Paladins, and Realm Royale, are joining in, too.

President Stewart Chisam recently posted a tweet calling Sony out on exactly this on Twitter. For people who believe there are no tangible benefits to a feature like that, Chisam also posted several that his company’s games saw once cross-platform play between Xbox One and Switch was implemented, including a reduction in wait times and bad matches for players.

On the whole, I stand with these developers on this issue—cross-platform play is the future, and Sony needs to just stop picking and choosing who it lets implement the feature.

https://twitter.com/schisam/status/1093887667190808576?s=21

Xplay improves match quality in multiplayer games. When we added crossplay between Paladins Xbox and Switch:
>> Wait time reduced 30%
>> Level spread between players down 40%
>> 40% reduction in ELO std deviation per match
>> 80% reduction in "Bad" matches (by our internal defn)

— Stewart Chisam (@schisam) February 8, 2019

Paladins was originally supposed to get cross platform play with a previous update, but the feature was apparently pushed to January (that is, this month). However, now, it seems to have been pushed further. In an update on the official website, Hi-Rez Studios, the developers of Paladins, announced that the feature, which will combine PC, Xbox One, and Switch player pools, is still not ready to roll out.

The reason cited for the delay is a “focus on polish”, by which I assume it’s still not working fully as intended. Paladins players, however, can expect full voice chat, cross platform friends list, and cross platform matchmaking, as well as cross platform progression, in the future, with an announced Update 2.02 (though, it is to be noted that cross progression will be for Xbox One and PC only for now)–though for now, we don’t have any release date for this update, either.

Paladins is out now on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

With Fortnite paving the way for full cross platform play across PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, PC, and mobile, you might expect other games to follow in its footsteps, but so far, none of them have. In fact, the latest addition to the cross platform play family, the free to play hero shooter Paladins, got crossplay enabled today via an update—but not for PS4.

It’s cross platform play has been enabled for Nintendo Switch, PC, and Xbox One. This means that if you are playing on the PS4, you now effectively have access to the smallest pool of players. That said, this should not come as a surprise to anyone, because the developers of Paladins have explicitly called Sony out on their stance towards cross platform play previously (comments made after Fortnite was enabled for full cross platform play, that is).

Hopefully, whatever the issues are that are holding up the activation of cross platform play on the PS4 side of things get resolved soon. You can see part of the patch notes for the newest update below.

GENERAL BUG FIXES

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to select a non-saved loadout if the match popped while they were constructing it.
• Fixed an issue where Lian’s Lounge Emote did not include her chair.
• Fixed a text error with the Jenos Squidbert skin.
• Corrected the Death Stamp order on the Profile Equip menu.
• CC reduction now reduces percent effectiveness of slow instead of duration.

ITEMS

Haven is now properly reducing damage from the following abilities:

• Buck – Net Shot
• Maeve – Pounce
• Ash – Shoulder Bash
• Lian – Grace
• Zhin – Spite
• Strix – Flare
• Talus – Blitz Upper
• Khan – Commander’s Grab

MAPS

Fixed various Warder’s Gate collision issues, one of which could result in players falling through the floor of the map.

Cross platform play in some capacity or the other has been a thing for over a decade now. But it was only with first Rocket League, then Minecraft, and finally Fortnite, that it became a major consumer expectation across the board. Fortnite, especially, being the most popular game in the world, and available on every platform, really helped push cross platform play, to the extent that it was the first game that Sony, the last holdout in the cross platform play stakes, ended up enabling it for.

Speaking with PCGamesN at HRX, Hi-Rez Studios, the folks who brought us Paladins, games that are available across many platforms and have cross platform play to some degree in all of them, spoke about the cross platform play initiative. General manager Chris Larsson specifically singled Epic Games and Fortnite as being the spark that gave rise to the cross platform play flame.

“Epic kind of did a favour for everyone,” he said. “I don’t think Epic wanted cross-play for its own financial gain. It was really to provide a better experience for its players, and I think that in the industry as a whole, that’s going to be a benefit for everyone. Without Epic, we would not be close to cross-play in its current state. It’s only since Fortnite kind of pushed for cross-play that providers have really started to embrace it.

“If you allow people to move their content freely between different platforms, you could lose some people. But at the same time, you may gain a lot of people, and also goodwill on top of it.”

Hopefully, what Epic Games started continues on with more and more games in the future. Fortnite is available on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android; Paladins is available on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.

Paladins, Smite, and Realm Royale developer Hi-Rez Studios is undergoing some big changes. It recently announced via a press release that it will be splitting up into three new studios that will each handle a different game. Titan Forge Games will be in charge of Smite, the studio’s popular action MOBA. Paladins will be handled by Evil Mojo, while Heroic Leap will manage its battle royale spin-off Realm Royale.

Managing all three teams will be general manager Chris Larson, who is formerly an executive producer for Smite and Paladins. The idea behind establishing separate studios for its games is to allow for more dedicated support to each individual community. Of course, it also allows the studio to handle multiple games better.

“The establishment of Titan Forge, Heroic Leap and Evil Mojo as standalone studios enables each of our development teams to fulfil their maximum potential and stay hyper-focused on serving their individual player communities,” said Larson. “Our games are built to provide near constant updates over many years. By giving each major game its own dedicated studio and identity, we empower them to control their own destiny and focus exclusively on their player communities. By structuring ourselves in this manner, we allow the organization to scale to multiple games more easily while ensuring our existing game communities receive a better, more focused service than ever before.”

Paladins released earlier this year after being in early access since 2016, and it’s received a pretty consistent stream of updates, new heroes, and content. Smite continues to receive new updates and events as well, while Realm Royale is still in early access and heading to consoles at some point.

Hi-Rez Studios announced not too long ago that Realm Royale, it’s battle royale off-shoot of Paladins, would be coming to Xbox One and PS4. The class-based shooter will go into closed beta first, and those who were interested can sign up beforehand. The first round of the closed beta invites was sent on August 1st, and while the overall size of this group will be small, more invites are coming.

Hi-Rez Studios community manager John Nash said on the game’s official site, “We appreciate the flood of interest in Realm Royale on console. For now, our closed testing audience for console is staying quite small while we refine some core mechanics. We hope to expand the size of the closed testing soon to a much larger audience.

“We’ll be making further technical improvements to the game and doing more testing as those changes are implemented. We want to make sure our console players get the best possible experience with Realm Royale. Thank you for your understanding and continued support. We’ll release more information about Console Closed Beta at a later date.”

Those who’re itching to get into Realm Royale but haven’t received a beta code till now can take heart. The game is currently available on PC via Steam. Furthermore, it’s free to play, though players aren’t too thrilled about a $15 cosmetic Alpha Pack being sold, especially since the game is still in the alpha phase. If the development schedule of Paladins is anything to go by, it could be a while before Realm Royale is fully launched.

In the meantime, what are your thoughts on the game? Let us know in the comments below, and whether you’d be interested in the console beta.

While the earlier months of the year were a bit slower for the Nintendo Switch in terms of meaningful game releases, things began to pick up starting May, and reached a zenith in July, which saw a multitude of great new releases for the platform.

From Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker to Octopath Traveler, from Go Vacation to Paladins, and more, there were a host of great new games that launched for the Switch this month- and now, with July finally ending, Nintendo has shared a brand new video highlighting the best games that were available on the Switch this month- fully priced retail games, free to play games, smaller indie games, first party games, third party games, everything.

It’s a frankly impressive lineup, and it’s not a stretch to say that no other console had a better July than the Switch did. Of course, Nintendo is gearing up for some killer games in the back half of the year as well, such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee– so let’s see if they can keep this pace of releases up.

While Paladins has been available on Nintendo Switch for a while – it launched last month, during E3 week, on Nintendo’s platform – it was not actually free to play on there, like it is everywhere else. The early release of Paladins on Switch just included the “Founder’s Pack”, where you pay for the game and all the heroes unlocked upfront, unlike with the regular free to play game, where you have to unlock everyone, either by earning them in game, or via microtransactions.

Now, however, the free to play version of Paladins is also available on Switch. The Paladins Twitter account confirmed today that Switch players who want to jump into the game can do so now without any upfront payment. Which, obviously, is bound to bring more attention to it. Given that Switch lacks many popular multiplayer shooters, such as Overwatch, Paladins is probably going to do well there- even better, now that it doesn’t need you to pay any money for it.

Paladins is available now on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

https://twitter.com/PaladinsGame/status/1022138491268882432

All of those rumors were apparently true- Paladins is indeed coming to Nintendo Switch. The hero shooter will be launching on the Switch on June 12 (so next Tuesday!) in early access. It will be available as a paid game (via its Founder’s Pack) to begin with, but a free to play version of the game will be launching on the Switch later in the Summer.

The paid version will allow, via the Founder’s Pack, the ability to immediately unlock all Champions and their voice packs now and forever, and also has exclusive cosmetics. The game will also have cross platform play with the Xbox One version of the game (but not the PS4 version- the developer has confirmed Sony is not allowing that).

Given that the Switch has so far lacked a popular multiplayer shooter outside of Splatoon 2, this is going to make for a great addition to the Switch’s lineup. Now all that’s missing is Fortnite, and we already have a pretty good idea that it’s coming, too…