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Overwatch Will Finally Be Introducing Cross-Play This Year

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It only took them five years, but Blizzard Entertainment revealed today that cross-play will finally be coming to Overwatch. Unfortunately, it's a little bit of a good-news-bad-news situation. The good news is that you'll be able to play on the same account no matter what console you're using, so you'll be able to take your profile from PC to PlayStation to Switch to Xbox without any issues.  The bad news… the only profile you get to use is your PC profile made on Battle.net, and cross-progression will not be available at the start.

The system will require console players to create a PC account in order to take part in cross-play, and moving forward that account will be associated with everything you do. Also, your ranking, your loot box items, and your achievements don't transfer over or mix. Meaning if you have one account on PS4 that is at a certain level with some skins and sprays and whatnot, they will remain there and not be added to the PC version, nor will your PC items appear on your console profile. We have more info below on how the system will play out, along with the latest developer update video.

The Overwatch cross-play beta in the near future, courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.
The Overwatch cross-play beta in the near future, courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.

Starting today, friends lists from different territories will be merged into one*, so you'll no longer need to switch regions in Battle.net to talk to your buddies on the other side of the planet. "As Global Battle.net rolls out, players around the world will be able to come together all across the larger Blizzard ecosystem without any hurdles for the first time ever," says Diana Hubbard, Platform Design Manager. In doing so, they will be able to effortlessly expand their friendships, groups, and communities—paving the way for forging new bonds over our present and future epic gaming experiences. This is just the first step, and it will only get better from here." To accent this new era of global gaming and social connectivity on Battle.net, we've also updated our logo.

"We realized some time ago that our players would be better served by a global Battle.net that did away with the concept of regions," says Jeff Allison, Lead Product Manager for Battle.net. "But breaking down these barriers was a significant engineering task. Now that we've done it, we look forward to a future where all Battle.net players can communicate and game together no matter where they are."

Battle.net's global updates also include cross-platform functionality. This has given our game developers the ability to let you play with others between PC and console seamlessly. Overwatch players will be the first to experience these new cross-play capabilities; for more information, check out this blog.

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Gavin SheehanAbout Gavin Sheehan

Gavin is the current Games Editor for Bleeding Cool. He has been a lifelong geek who can chat with you about comics, television, video games, and even pro wrestling. He can also teach you how to play Star Trek chess, be your Mercy on Overwatch, recommend random cool music, and goes rogue in D&D. He also enjoys hundreds of other geeky things that can't be covered in a single paragraph. Follow @TheGavinSheehan on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vero, for random pictures and musings.
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