Bethesda’s on the digital card game genre, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, is set to take players on exciting duals across Tamriel on consoles soon. With the release of the game, Bethesda hopes to allow players to play and compete with others across all platforms, no matter which one it may be. With this comes the bold statement that they might not put their game on systems that will not allow crossplay.
This statement is indirectly aimed at Sony, for they have had negative track record when it comes to cross platform play. There has been lots of backlash due to the lack of cross platform play with popular titles, such as Rocket League and Fortnite. Before TES: Legends can be released on the PlayStation 4, Bethesda wants the option for crossplay to be there. There are arguments for restricting crossplay between consoles and the PC, mainly due to different control schemes, handling, and even netcode.
However, the PlayStation 4 already has crossplay with Street Fighter V, and players can battle it out with each other on the PS4 and PC without much differences. Even more so, Pete Hines, Bethesda’s senior vice president of global marketing and communications, states that “[The Elder Scrolls: Legends is] a strategy card game. It doesn’t matter.” Things get even more interesting when the apparent main reasons why Sony has not budged with cross play is because the company does not “like someone buying something on an Xbox and it being used on Playstation.”
In the digital card game world, being able to play with anyone on any system is important, for it allows for easier accessibility and match finding, and not only that, but it also greatly increases the competition throughout the entire game. Rather than having someone who is the best on a system, games can have people who are just the best in the world, or specified region. “We can’t be talking about one version of Legends, where you take your progress with you, and another version where you stay within that ecosystem or its walled off from everything else,” said Hines. “That is counter to what the game has been about.”
Hines also went on to state the following:
[The Elder Scrolls Legends] is a strategy card game that encompasses both single and multiplayer. It is both cross-platform play and cross-platform progress. It is our intention in order for the game to come out, it has to be those things on any system. We cannot have a game that works one way across everywhere else except for on this one thing. The way the game works right now on Apple, Google, Steam, and Bethesda.net, it doesn’t matter where you buy your stuff, if you play it on another platform that stuff is there. It doesn’t matter what platform you play on, you play against everyone else who is playing at that moment.
With pressure from Bethesda, Sony might have to think quickly on their feet. The lack of TES: Legends on their console will be a big miss for them, and this will also add already lacking library of crossplay games on the console.