Borderlands 3 gets cross-play in its next update, but not on PlayStation

Published , by TJ Denzer

As the gaming world opens up further and further to cross-play, the various philosophies of companies in relation to it have become crystal clear. Particularly, PlayStation seems to have far more red tape and concerns about cross-play than any other group. That has once again been made clear in a recent update from Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford regarding an upcoming update for Borderlands 3 meant to bring cross-play to the game.

Pitchford revealed the upcoming update and situation regarding Borderlands 3 cross-play on his personal Twitter on May 27, 2021. According to him, there’s a big update right around the corner for Borderlands 3 that would have made cross-play available across all platforms the game can be played on. That’s great and all, except for one glaring detail. Because certification has been an issue for the cross-play feature on PlayStation consoles, Gearbox was apparently forced to remove the feature from PS4 and PS5 in the coming update. These consoles won’t be able to cross-play with the others when the feature initially drops in the upcoming Borderlands 3 update.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Sony and PlayStation being hard or particularly tricky to work with in regards to cross-play. One revealed detail of documents in relation to the Apple vs. Epic Games court case was that PlayStation actually asks for money specifically to have games feature cross-play on PS4 and PS5, apparently to cover the cost that it would “lose” due to players playing games on other systems. It’s a shame to see this keeping PlayStation players from player with others outright, but at the very least, it seems cross-play is pretty much ready for Borderlands 3, already a great game as is.

Here’s hoping that with a further update, we’ll see full cross-play come to Borderlands 3 and open up the fun to PlayStation players. It may be some time coming though.