Seven Years In, Fallout 76 Lacks Crossplay, Yet Bethesda Keeps the Door Open
Fallout 76’s developers have confirmed they are still “looking into” the potential for crossplay in Bethesda’s multiplayer title, but don’t hold your breath for it to arrive with the upcoming update on February 11. In fact, it seems unlikely that players will be able to team up across platforms anytime soon, as the “huge technical hurdles” involved in implementing crossplay post-launch continue to challenge the team.
In a recent discussion, Fallout 76’s production director Bill LaCoste and creative director Jon Rush addressed the long-awaited feature. Rush stated, “We are looking into it, and we have plans to try to scope out what that work is going to entail for us. It’s just not in the immediate plans for us. We know players want it.”
LaCoste elaborated that crossplay isn’t on the horizon, as the team faces significant challenges in retrofitting the game to support it. “It’s just huge technical hurdles that are things that you tackle before release, during your actual development of the product…so going back and retrofitting it to do that, when you have different places that players are pointing into, and now you’re having to worry about entitlements and account purchases and currency.”
In the past, Sony was a major obstacle to crossplay on consoles. Former Bethesda marketing head Pete Hines mentioned that crossplay and cross-progression were “essentially non-negotiable” for its Elder Scrolls card game back in 2018, but that didn’t extend to Fallout 76. By 2024, Todd Howard emphasized that cross-progression was the priority (which Fallout 76 supports), while crossplay remained a daunting technical challenge.
“Here’s what I would say, which is for us the more important thing is cross-progression than cross-play—and we do separate them—we’d love to have it all, sure. It’s something we are looking at but I will say it’s quite—the way that [Fallout 76] was architected from the beginning—a technical lift. Not saying we are or aren’t doing anything, we are looking at it and seeing where that’s going to impact people,” he noted in an interview.
Two years later, the demand for crossplay is still strong. LaCoste and Rush assured fans that the studio “isn’t ignoring” their requests and that they “will continue to investigate” and “establish plans” moving forward, but the response remains somewhat vague. Unfortunately, any changes won’t arrive in time to take advantage of the momentum from Fallout season 2. Steam’s concurrent player count for Fallout 76 rose from 13,000 on December 15, 2025, to around 32,000 on February 8, partly due to the game’s free trial.
Fans are hopeful for a crossplay update before Fallout season 3 launches, but it might be wise to temper expectations, especially after the disappointment surrounding the anticipated remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas that never materialized following the countdown to Fallout season 2’s finale.
