Hey everyone - In case you missed it, yesterday we announced that crossplay is coming to Halo Wars 2 in the next update! This will allow players on Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One to play together - something that many of you have been asking for since launch. Crossplay, along with Arena support and the Xbox One X 4K/HDR updates, are targeted for release at the end of October.
Here's the blurb from yesterday's recap blog:
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We’ve touched on Xbox Arena before, so astute Halo Wars 2 players no doubt already knew that, but during our 10/17 live stream we also dropped breaking news of another new feature coming in the next game update – Crossplay for Xbox and Windows 10 PCs! As an Xbox Play Anywhere title, players have the ability to enjoy Halo Wars 2 on their console or PC, but up until now that has not included cross-platform online play. Crossplay has been a passion project for the team and frankly was something we weren’t sure would be feasible to incorporate at this stage in the game’s development. The team has worked hard to deliver this feature and final testing indicates it’s ready for release into the wild. Crossplay, Arena support, and the Xbox One X visual enhancements are all targeted for release in late October.
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As awesome as this news is, I've seen some questions and concerns around crossplay that I wanted to help clear up. The Halo Wars 2 team shared some additional context and insights into how Crossplay is being handled - don't worry, console players aren't going to suddenly start getting destroyed by mouse & keyboard players. :) The team has thought about this a lot, and here's what the current plan is:
When the update is released, the following will be enabled for crossplay:
Thanks for all of the feedback and support, we're looking forward to getting this new update into your hands soon!
Here's the blurb from yesterday's recap blog:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We’ve touched on Xbox Arena before, so astute Halo Wars 2 players no doubt already knew that, but during our 10/17 live stream we also dropped breaking news of another new feature coming in the next game update – Crossplay for Xbox and Windows 10 PCs! As an Xbox Play Anywhere title, players have the ability to enjoy Halo Wars 2 on their console or PC, but up until now that has not included cross-platform online play. Crossplay has been a passion project for the team and frankly was something we weren’t sure would be feasible to incorporate at this stage in the game’s development. The team has worked hard to deliver this feature and final testing indicates it’s ready for release into the wild. Crossplay, Arena support, and the Xbox One X visual enhancements are all targeted for release in late October.
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As awesome as this news is, I've seen some questions and concerns around crossplay that I wanted to help clear up. The Halo Wars 2 team shared some additional context and insights into how Crossplay is being handled - don't worry, console players aren't going to suddenly start getting destroyed by mouse & keyboard players. :) The team has thought about this a lot, and here's what the current plan is:
- Crossplay will be supported for Campaign, Blitz Firefight, Terminus Firefight, Custom Games, and all UNRANKED Playlists
- All of the main ranked playlists will remain platform-specific for the sake of fairness and parity
- For players who really want to see how console stacks up against PC, a new playlist called "Ranked 3v3 X War" will be added that will support crossplay.
When the update is released, the following will be enabled for crossplay:
- Campaign
- Blitz & Terminus Firefight
- Custom Games
- Unranked Playlists: Versus AI, "Team War", 1V1 Blitz
- Ranked Playlist: (NEW) "Ranked 3v3 X War"
Thanks for all of the feedback and support, we're looking forward to getting this new update into your hands soon!