When Sony finally started to back down from its restrictive cross-platform play policies and started allowing the functionality for games like Fortnite and Rocket League, it seemed they might have put the controversy in their rearview mirror. Clearly, that hasn’t been the case. The likes of Gaijin Entertainment and Hi-Rez Studios have both called out Sony for playing favourites with which games they allow to have cross-play enabled on the PS4, with War Thunder and Paladins both having been restricted from doing so.
PlayStation boss Shawn Layden recently said that Sony hasn’t been doing any such thing, and that developers who want to get cross-play enabled in their games simply need to get in touch with their PlayStation account manager executives and make the request. However, according to Chucklefish, developers of the recently released Wargroove, which has cross-play enabled on all versions but the PS4, it isn’t that simple.
Posting in a thread on Resetera, Finn Brice, CEO of Chucklefish, stated that they had made the request for cross-play to be enabled on the PS4 version of Wargroove multiple times, and also got in touch with their PlayStation account manager, but were told that “it was not going to happen”. As per Brice, enabling cross-play in the game is literally as simple as toggling a switch, but Sony has not given them permission to do so on PS4.
“We made many requests for cross-play (both through our account manager and directly with higher ups) all the way up until release month,” Brice wrote. “We were told in no uncertain terms that it was not going to happen. From our side, we can literally toggle a switch and have it working. Of course policy work might be more complicated for Sony.”
“Just wanted to provide some balance on the issue and say that it certainly isn’t a question of developers having not contacted their account managers or having dropped the ball,” he added. “We were told no.”
That’s a pretty damning statement. It’s baffling to see Sony allowing cross-play on some games but not on others, even those that have been built with the functionality in mind and have made repeated requests for the feature to be enabled. Sony’s stance on cross-play has been frustratingly stubborn for a long time now, and it seemed like they had turned a corner when they finally backed down with Fortnite, and then with Rocket League. That doesn’t seem to have been the case entirely- hopefully all concerned can come to a resolution in the near future.
Wargroove is currently out on PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. A PS4 release is planned, but a release date hasn’t yet been announced.