Bethesda's Todd Howard Says Sony "Isn't Being as Helpful" With Crossplay

Fallout 76 being the first of the franchise to have multiplayer features could make for a big milestone in terms of crossplay, but Bethesda's Todd Howard says that Sony isn't being too helpful with the situation.

Speaking to German site Gamestar.de (via Game Informer), Howard, the executive producer for Bethesda Game Studios, discussed the possibility of having crossplay enabled in Fallout 76. Such a feature would allow players to traverse the West Virginian wasteland together regardless of if they were playing on a PlayStation 4, an Xbox One, or a PC. Asked directly about the possibilities of the crossplay actually happening, Howard said that Bethesda cannot feature crossplay in Fallout 76. That's not to say that the team doesn't want to, but directing the attention towards Sony, he said that it's not possible right now.

"We would love that, but right now we can't," Howard said when asked about enabling crossplay. "Sony isn't as helpful as everyone would like."

Howard added that Bethesda will "see what happens," though he didn't give any more indication of whether talks of crossplay were actively going on between Bethesda and the console companies.

Those advocating for crossplay between consoles will know that this is far from the first time that the blame has been shifted to Sony for the feature's absence, though this is perhaps one of the more direct statements that we've heard. Other companies like Psyonix have said in the past that Rocket League could have crossplay between the consoles if Sony was willing, but Howard's comment that Sony isn't being too helpful with the process has a bit more sting to it. Other games like Minecraft and even Fortnite have a crossplay feature enabled to allow for different combinations between the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, depending on what you're playing on, but PS4 to PC crossplay is the most that you'll get out of Sony's system right now.

That's not to say that Sony isn't looking into crossplay in some form, though their answer doesn't carry as much oomph as Howard's does. Just recently, Eurogamer asked Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Shawn Layden about crossplay and said that "it seems to be Sony's not listening." Layden answered to say that they are, and that possibilities are being examined.

"We're hearing it," he said. "We're looking at a lot of the possibilities. You can imagine that the circumstances around that affect a lot more than just one game. I'm confident we'll get to a solution which will be understood and accepted by our gaming community, while at the same time supporting our business."

Fallout 76 is scheduled to release on November 14 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.