Rocket League Gets Xbone Cross-Platform Play Today
"You're going home in the back of a Warthog!"
Have you prepared your chants and jeers for Rocket League [official site] adding cross-platform multiplayer with Xbox One today? "You're going home in the back of a Warthog." Things like that. "Where's your Milo gone? (Where's your Milo gone?)" That stuff. "Two console wars and one E3, doo-dah doo-dah!" You get the idea. And after Edinburgh echoed with Sunshine on Leith all weekend, I realise you need a song too: Baba Yetu or At Doom's Gate? What's sportsball without friendly territorial rivalry?
Cross-platform play between the Xbone and Steam versions will come tonight from 10pm UTC - that's 3pm Pacific, 11pm UK time. This should hook PC up with almost 2 million potential extra players. Probably not that many regulars in reality.
"With this new addition, players can now easily include (or not include) cross-network rivals in both public and private matches, thanks to an easy-to-find toggle check box in the Options menu," today's announcement explains.
One unanswered question is whether it'll support proper cross-platform parties. While Rocket League's PC-PS4 compatibility lets players join private games together as well as encountering each other in matchmaking, they can't all party up and join matchmaking together. If PC-Xbone did, you think they'd make a bigger deal of it. I suppose we'll see in a few hours!
This is the first Xbox One game to support Xbone-Steam cross-platform play. Games including Killer Instinct have supported Xbone-Windows 10 play, but this simply supports the Steam version without extra faff or restrictions. Microsoft have become more open to cross-platform multiplayer recently.