Gears of War 4 players on Xbox One and Windows 10 will now be able to take each other on in Versus Multiplayer. After testing the waters with a cross-play weekend last year, The Coalition has announced that cross-play between platforms will now be available permanently on the Social Quickplay playlist.
A big reason behind the push was that The Coalition saw that its cross-play test was, in large part, a success, with neither platform giving players a discernible advantage over the other. From Xbox Wire (opens in new tab):
When we looked at the extensive data we received thanks to the incredible participation from our community, there was a clear message – it works. And after reading the hundreds of pages of discussion and feedback from the cross-play Test Weekend, our fans said the same – it works.As such, beginning today, Social Quickplay will now be a Cross-play playlist! This step is planned to be a permanent move for the future of Social Quickplay, with the first few months being a 'trial period' in order to monitor player feedback alongside data to ensure the Test Weekend was representative.
Do note that this only applies to Social Quickplay. As it stands, Core and Competitive are still strictly platform independent. As noted by The Coalition, this is to ensure that ranked gameplay remains as competitive as possible. For quick social matches, however, the change should have a positive effect by increasing the number of players available on both platforms without heavily impacting actual gameplay.
