Bethesda Says Cross-Play in The Elder Scrolls: Legends Is "Essentially Non-Negotiable"

Having cross-play enabled in The Elder Scrolls: Legends is a feature that Bethesda's aiming to make mandatory on every version of the game, something that brings its release on certain platforms into question.

The card game that pulls from the world of The Elder Scrolls is already out on the PC and mobile platforms with Bethesda planning on bringing it to consoles soon as well. Describing the console experience to Game Informer during QuakeCon 2018, Bethesda's senior vice president of global marketing and communications Pete Hines defined it as a single-player and multiplayer strategy card game and said that "it is both cross-platform play and cross-platform progress."

At that point, Game Informer inquired as to what this means for those on the PlayStation 4, a platform that Sony has notoriously kept free of any kind of cross-play with other consoles. When asked if the PlayStation 4 would be an exception to these expectations since it doesn't allow cross-play, Hines said that Bethesda plans on making the game's experience identical throughout all platforms.

"It is our intention in order for the game to come out, it has to be those things on any system," Hines told Game Informer. "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. There's no 'Oh, it's easier to control, or it has a better framerate on this system.' It's a strategy card game. It doesn't matter."

That kind of a statement brings the release of the game on the PlayStation 4 into question, and when asked to clarify whether Hines was indicating that it wouldn't be out on Sony's console if cross-play wasn't enabled, he said that Bethesda is continuing to talk to all console creators.

"We continue to talk to all of our platform partners," Hines said. "But those [terms] are essentially non-negotiable. 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. That is counter to what the game has been about."

He went on to say that the message about cross-play and the game's intended features isn't specifically directed to anyone but added that "this is what we are doing, what we need, and what we intend."