Is Fallout 76 Cross-Platform?

Fallout 76 was released back in 2018, emerging as the first multiplayer-based game in the franchise. As the leading post-apocalyptic franchise in gaming, Fallout 76 was poised to unite friends as they explored a devastated wasteland. However, owing to a disappointing launch, it took years before Fallout 76 really ‘stabilised’, becoming known as a great multiplayer game. Today, we’re here to answer a question that the community has been asking for a long time: is Fallout 76 cross-platform?

For many years, fans of the Fallout franchise were hungry for a cooperative experience. While the Fallout franchise has been a single-player series since the late nineties, Fallout 76 finally gave players the ability to join forces with other, real-world gamers. It was a huge step forward for the franchise, even if the game itself wasn’t very well received. By 2022, Fallout 76 still has some obstacles to overcome, but as an MMORPG title in a relatively niche genre, it’s doing very well for itself.

So, is Fallout 76 cross-platform?

Is Fallout 76 A Good Game?

Image Credit: Bethesda Game Studios

Before we tackle how Fallout 76 can be played, let’s address the elephant in the room. For years, both fans and critics of Fallout 76 have been at each others’ throats, debating whether or not Fallout 76 is actually a good game. In 2018, when the game was released, it suffered immeasurably at the hands of the Fallout community. As a game, Fallout 76 boasted an empty, desolate world, devoid of any meaningful AI presence. It had very little in the way of a story, it was terribly buggy, and the roadmap was near inexistent.

If we fast-forward to today, Fallout 76 has been updated and expanded countless times. The developer, Bethesda Game Studios, has fleshed out the MMORPG platform with several storylines, thriving settlements, a season structure, and a whole host of fixes that have made the game much more stable. It’s an enjoyable game in itself, even if the community still doesn’t believe it’s a good Fallout game.

As Fallout 5 is likely many years away from being released, Fallout 76 is, ultimately, all the community has. In mid-2022, Bethesda Game Studios revealed that Fallout 76 boated a multi-year roadmap behind the scenes and that there would be enough content to keep the fire stoked for at least five years.

Is Fallout 76 Crossplay?

Unfortunately, one of the leading shortcomings of Fallout 76 is that it isn’t a cross-platform title. Since day one, Fallout 76’s crossplay features have failed to surface, despite the community calling out for cross-platform integration on many occasions. It would serve to unite the community across all platforms, but for now, players are restricted, and if their friend plays Fallout 76 on a different platform to them, then it’s simply tough – they cannot play together.

What is the meaning of crossplay? It’s a relatively common mechanic in modern gaming, and it’s a feature that allows gamers to connect and play with players on other formats. For instance, it allows an Xbox owner to play the same game at the same time as someone on a PlayStation platform.

It’s a feature that’s on the wishlist for many Fallout 76 players, but for now, the game certainly is not crossplay. Sadly, Fallout 76 cross-progression doesn’t exist, either. This is a feature that allows players to essentially recover the progress they’ve made in one game if they access the same game on another platform. If you play Fallout 76 on one platform and then move to another, you’ll have to start from scratch, losing all of your progress thus far.

Will Fallout 76 be cross-platform? There’s no knowing what the future holds, but at present, it doesn’t look likely. If you’re wondering how cross-platform games work, we’ve written another concise guide explaining just that.

What Are the Alternatives?

There’s a lengthy list out there, and some of the best crossplay games can be considered similar to Fallout 76. For example, in the multiplayer-only survival game, Rust, crossplay is available, if somewhat limited. If you’d like to run around an open world with your friends and fight dinosaurs, Ark is crossplay to some extent. There are alternatives out there, but if you’re looking for a multiplayer, post-apocalyptic adventure, Fallout 76 is almost in a league of its own.