In the current patch, Fortnite has introduced a kind of “forced crossplay”. Players on PS4 and Xbox One now automatically play against each other. If they refuse, they can no longer play Fortnite: Battle Royale, but only peaceful modes.
This is a change that was not mentioned in the German patch notes, but is stated in the English patch notes for Fortnite update 8.10.
The Fortnite patch was applied yesterday at noon and changed surprisingly a lot. Apparently even more than we thought yesterday.
This is how the patch has changed crossplay: Fortnite has introduced “crossplay matchmaking” for PS4 and Xbox One as standard with yesterday’s patch.
- The lobbies of Xbox One and PlayStation are now combined by default. Players now automatically have crossplay with the other platform active.
- This includes mobile players and players on the Nintendo Switch now as a common pool.
- For PC players, nothing changes.
What does this mean? If you normally start a match on PS4 or Xbox One, you are now playing not only against other players on your console but also against people from the other platform.
What if you don’t want that? If you decide to turn off crossplay on PS4 and Xbox One, you can only play playground mode and creative mode in Fortnite . But no longer Fortnite: Battle Royale.
So you don’t really have a choice.
This is how crossplay was before in Fortnite: Before the patch, players could decide to activate crossplay, but did not have to. When players played together in a team, the “highest platform or controller” always determined which lobby they were thrown into:
- If a PC player was present, they were in a PC lobby.
- If someone used a mouse or keyboard, they were in a PC lobby.
- If there were only controller players on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, they were in a console lobby.
- If there were only mobile players in the team, the team played in a mobile lobby.
Previously, Switch players were grouped with players on PS4 and Xbox One, and mobile players were separate. This has now been changed as well.
Crossplay was actually only interesting if you wanted to play with friends on other platforms – because Epic even fought for this to happen, for Sony to give in and allow crossplay.
Why is Fortnite doing this? The justification is that they want to optimize the potential to run more game lists. It seems that Fortnite wants to have as many matches as possible started at any time of the day and in any place.
Epic already says they are waiting for feedback. As always, they seem ready to react quickly and change course if players are upset.
How to stay updated on Fortnite: You can find more news, stories, and guides about Fortnite on our Facebook page, which focuses solely on Fortnite and its Battle Royale spin-off!
