Last year, Epic Games’ Epic Online Services introduced a free PC crossplay overlay. This made it very simple for developers to have everything they need to connect their game and community across platforms and stores. This was the first in a series of plug-and-play crossplay services. Today, Epic Games announced that it is expanding the crossplay overlay with initial support for games on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation consoles, giving developers more platforms to connect to.
Epic Online Services crossplay overlay now works seamlessly on Steam, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Epic Games Store, enabling players to find their friends across the over 750 million Epic Games accounts to connect and play.
“The crossplay overlay offers a ubiquitous way to authenticate players, streamline friend management, and provide game invite and joinability functionality that’s designed to be compliant with native platform requirements,” Epic Games wrote in a blog post.
“Crossplay enables bigger games, bigger audiences, and growth for the global games industry. With the added support for the major console platforms, Epic Online Services now enables you to connect more players with a single overlay.”
“Anyone that’s ever developed a crossplay game knows that there are a lot of elements that go into making it feel seamless,” Epic Games wrote. “With the crossplay overlay, any game can enable players to sign in to their Epic Games account on all platforms and easily interact with their friends. Here’s a breakdown of what’s included.”
- Consistent overlay UX. An out-of-the-box overlay that provides a familiar player experience on PC and console platforms.
- One combined friends list. Friend lists across platforms merge into one overlay, enabling players to see and invite their friends in one place.
- Frictionless cross-platform account creation. Players can start playing quickly using their existing Epic Games account or a new one that’s created for them, linked to their active native platform account.
- Integrated game invites. In-game, players can search and send game invites to friends across platforms, making connecting and playing together easy.
- Secure social experience on any platform. Implements the native platforms’ trust, safety, and privacy guidelines, in addition to Epic’s own trust and safety controls.
- Plug-and-play SDK. Each Epic Online Services toolset is self-contained, so developers can mix and match the services they want to implement, incorporate what they want, and leave the rest. Crossplay tools are no different.