Big news coming out of The Coalition this week! Gears of War 4 will finally have cross-play between Xbox One and Windows 10 players, but only in one multiplayer game mode. When playing Social Quickplay, players will be paired with both Windows 10 and Xbox One players, even though most will likely be Xbox One.
For those unaware, last year The Coalition decided to host a cross-play test weekend to “bring [their] Windows 10 and Xbox One fans together in public Versus Multiplayer, combining fan feedback and extensive data gathering to help [them] decide the next steps to take to deliver a matchmaking cross-play Versus experience.”
Over the course of the weekend, there were over 750,000 matches played by over 115,000 players, who to be honest were mostly Xbox One players. According to an Xbox Wire post, the split between Xbox one and Windows 10 players was pretty great, with 91% of players using an Xbox One to only 9% of Windows 10 players. Where Windows 10 exceeded was the number of matches played per game time. Xbox One players played an average of 6.2 games, whereas Windows 10 players had an average of 11.2.
After receiving promising feedback and having a successful and balanced weekend, The Coalition has decided to make Social Quickplay permanently a cross-play Versus game mode. They will be monitoring the first few months to make sure that matches are balanced and monitor data to “ensure the Test Weekend was representative.”
All other Versus modes such as Core and Competitive will remain platform exclusive. The only way to be matched up with Windows 10 players will be to play Social Quickplay. While odds are against it for Xbox One payers, you may just be playing with someone using a PC.