Dead By Daylight crossplay ought to be a no-brainer. The tense multiplayer game blurs the line between competitive and cooperative play — forcing teams of survivors to juke terrifying monsters and killers. With such a diverse range of characters, and different ways to play, you’d want to let as many people play together as possible. Right? While that may be the case, it’s no promise that players on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation can join together. That’s why we’re here with a look at crossplay in Dead By Daylight! Does the horrific hunting game break down the walls between fans? Let’s find out!
Does Dead By Daylight Have Crossplay Support?
The answer is… kind of complicated. The waters are muddied by the existence of multiple storefronts that sell Dead By Daylight. The game is currently available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and even Nintendo Switch. There’s even a mobile version on iOS and Android now.
PC players, however, have to make a choice between buying Dead By Daylight on Steam or through the Windows Store. And originally those two player bases could not match with one another, despite being on (more-or-less) the same hardware. Developer Behaviour Interactive rectified that issue in late 2019, however. The team opened up a limited version of Dead By Daylight crossplay for that platform specifically — allowing all PC players to, well, play together.
After testing this feature out, Behavior has brought cross play (Windows Store to Steam) and cross-friends (cross-platform) to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. This means all four platforms can finally play together.
This does not apply to the newer mobile version of the game and there are no plans to add it. If you’re on a phone, you can’t play with someone on a console or PC. The good news is there’s at least crossplay between iPhones and Android devices. As long as you and a friend are on mobile, you can play together.
Dead by Daylight Cross Progression Support
Brace yourselves for some more bad news depending on which platforms you play on. Behavior Interactive is indeed adding cross progression support, letting you keep your progress across multiple platforms. The bad news? Cross progression is only coming to Steam, Google Stadia, and Nintendo Switch in September.
You will soon be able to share your progression, purchases, and inventory on those three platforms though Behavior warns there may be some exceptions due to licensing.
The developers don’t rule out cross progression coming to other platforms but say they can’t make it happen as of today and will keep trying to make it a reality.
To enable cross progression, you’ll need to link your Behavior account on all three platforms. If there’s an update and one console gets patched late, crossplay will be temporarily disabled until the versions are the same again.
If you want to deactivate crossplay simply go to Settings > Disable Cross-Platform Play.
Why No Cross Progression on Xbox and PS4?
Our best guess is it’s a licensing issue with the Xbox and PlayStation store fronts. Sony and Microsoft likely don’t want to sacrifice all of those potential purchases. Destiny 2 had a similar problem. While in game purchases like cosmetics and season passes were fair game, externally purchased expansions were a no go. Players who wanted cross progression were forced to purchase the expansions on all three platforms.
The State of Crossplay and Cross Platform Support
Crossplay support only gets more popular with time! Odds are that it will be the norm before too long. Until then, though, the vast majority of cross platform multiplayer games don’t fully include it. When they do, it’s often restricted to players on one console playing with those on PC. Microsoft and Sony seem to view the PC as neutral ground.
Microsoft in particular has extra incentive in the form of its “play anywhere policy.” Typically, if you buy a digital copy of a Microsoft first-party exclusive, you get to own it both on Xbox and PC — free of additional charge. At that point there’s really no reason not to let folks play together. Throw in services like Xbox Game Pass (which is now on PC) and things get even easier.
Sony has historically taken pretty much the opposite approach. The company is far and away the sales leader on this generation of consoles. That incentivizes it not to play well with others — or allow its partner studios to do so on its hardware. In addition, Sony first-party exclusives basically never come out on PC. It’s PlayStation or nothing. Although there are a number of third-party games only available on PlayStation and PC that do feature crossplay (e.g. Final Fantasy XIV).
Even so, Sony has announced its crossplay solution has exited “beta” and should be freely available to all. There are also rumors that PS4 exclusives like Horizon: Zero Dawn are on their way to PC, lifting even more walls that have traditionally kept the manufacturer separated from its peers.
More Dead By Daylight:
- Killers Can Soon Smash Through Walls in Dead By Daylight
- The Best Survivor Builds in Dead by Daylight
- Dead by Daylight Demogorgon Guide – Killer Power, Perks, Best Add-Ons
Fortnite managed to push the envelope a bit by virtue of being one of the biggest games on the planet. Developer Epic Games also pushed the issue when it “accidentally” turned on Fortnite crossplay for a short time — thereby proving it wasn’t a technical limitation. That sparked a conversation around crossplay games over the entire industry. But while Sony has said it is “open for business” when it comes to cross platform play, many developers say otherwise (both publicly and privately).
Speaking of some of the biggest games in the world, Minecraft is another strange case. Microsoft purchased the franchise from fictional character Hatsune Miku in 2014. But Minecraft, of course, was already on every platform under the sun. That included Sony and Nintendo hardware. Microsoft and Nintendo have seemingly played nice ever since.
The “technical limitation” argument does hold some water, however. Many current and even upcoming games were built with the assumption that crossplay would not be an option. Some studios have the resources, time, and/or singular focus to get around that. Others do not. With the present state of crossplay, however, it’s very difficult to imagine it not becoming the norm at a technical and policy level. If we get to the next generation of console hardware without crossplay being the norm, then you know we have a problem…
