Fallout 76’s developers have reiterated that they’re still “looking into” the possibility of bringing crossplay to Bethesda’s seven-year-old multiplayer spin-off, but don’t expect it to drop alongside the upcoming February 11 update. In fact, don’t expect to jump into Fallout 76 with your platform divergent brethren at any point in the near future, as the “huge technical hurdles” associated with adding crossplay post-launch are still proving to be a headache for Bethesda.
Polygon recently sat down with Fallout 76’s production director Bill LaCoste and creative director Jon Rush, and prompted the duo for an “update” regarding the long-requested addition of crossplay. “We are looking into it, and we have plans to try to scope out what that work is going to entail for us,” replied Rush. “It’s just not in the immediate plans for us. We know players want it.”
LaCoste explained that plans for crossplay aren’t “in the short term,” as the team is running into issues with trying to retroactively add the feature. “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.”
Why Fallout 76 crossplay taking so long?
Once upon a time, Sony was the big roadblock to crossplay on consoles. Former Bethesda marketing head Pete Hines said crossplay and cross-progression were “essentially non-negotiable” back in 2018 for its Elder Scrolls card game, but that clearly didn’t apply to Fallout 76. By 2024, Todd Howard was talking about how cross-progression was the bigger priority (which Fallout 76 has) while crossplay was still a potentially insurmountable technical challenge.
“Here’s what I would say, which is for us the the more the 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] 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 said in an interview at the time.
Two years later, Bethesda devs are still getting hammered with the request. LaCoste and Rushhe confirmed the studio “isn’t ignoring” fans’ requests, and that the developers “will continue to investigate” and “establish plans” in the future, but it still all sounds pretty noncommittal. Unfortunately, any eventual changes won’t be in time to capitalize on the success of Fallout season 2. Steam concurrent player numbers for Fallout 76 steadily climbed from 13,000 on December 15, 2025, to roughly 32,000 on February 8, bolstered in part by the game’s free trial.
Hopefully, a crossplay update launches before Fallout season 3 drops, but perhaps it’s better that fans keep their expectations low this time around, considering how disappointed fans were when the long-rumored remasters for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas failed to materialize after Fallout season 2’s finale countdown clock expired.
