Cross-play is finally coming to Dead by Daylight. Developer Behaviour Interactive made a recent announcement via a blog post on their website. They say this is part of “preparing the first steps towards cross-progression” where players will be able to share game progression, purchases, and inventory across PC, Google Stadia, and Nintendo Switch.
The two things most requested by game fans were the ability to play with friends from other platforms (cross-friends) and cross-progression.
Cross-Play and Cross-Friends
The developers say that cross-play/cross-friends is now live on the Windows Store and Steam as a beta at the moment. They also say they’re now “confident moving forward with the release of Cross-Play on console”.
Behaviour Interactive is preparing to activate Cross-Play and Cross-Friends on consoles which would mean that PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will be able to play together. They haven’t given a specific date for this release yet but promise it will be soon.
Cross Progression Plans
As well as the ability to play with others across platforms, Behaviour Interactive started to investigate a way for players to be active across several platforms at once.
The developers are preparing the first steps towards cross-progression which is planned for release in September. This will mean that those who own the game across Steam, Google Stadia or Nintendo Switch will be able to switch platforms, while keeping their progress.
Behaviour Interactive do have some bad news for cross-progression outside of these platforms though. “As of today, we cannot make Cross-Progression available on other platforms and we have no guarantee that it will happen. However, we know that this is a community wish, and we will keep trying to make it happen.”
While this doesn’t rule it out, it might be a bit disappointing for those wanting to play across these platforms. On a similar note, they also mentioned that this cross-play feature probably won’t extend to mobile versions of the game, at least for now. “We are prioritizing the release of cross-play between PC & Consoles first to make sure that the experience is smooth for the players on those platforms.”
Technical Challenges
Behaviour Interactive has given some insight into the technical challenges they’ve faced trying to make cross-progression a reality. So, if we ever see it on other consoles, it could be quite a wait.
“We spent lots of time preparing and discussing the best way to provide Cross-Progression to our players. We want to make sure the transition will be smooth and that we protect our player’s progression.
“In order to achieve a good transition, we had to build a brand new ecosystem. Players will have to create a Behaviour Account to link their progression, so our server can merge it.”
Overall, it looks like a promising development from Behaviour Interactive. It will be interesting to see if other studios take note and introduce something similar for their fan bases. We did just hear that World War Z will be implementing similar, perhaps this is going to be more of a norm going forward.
What other games would you love to see cross-play or cross-progression on? Let us know down in the comments.