Fallout 76 cross-play bad news is all Sony's fault says Bethesda director

Cross-platform play is something that's on the minds of a lot of gamers at the moment, and Sony has been getting a lot of negative attention because of it. While the industry in general seems to be moving toward a future where anyone can play games with their friends regardless of platform, Sony has been the last major holdout. Sony's unwillingness to play nice with other platform holders seems to have quashed plans for cross-play in yet another game, and this time around, it's Bethesda's Fallout 76.

In an interview with German website GameStar.de, Todd Howard says that Fallout 76 will not have cross-play functionality. When asked why, Howard placed the blame squarely on Sony, putting another black mark on the company's cross-play record.

"You cannot do cross-play in Fallout 76 for some reason," Howard said. "We'd really love to add it, but right now we can't." When GameStar asked him if Sony or Microsoft were resistant to the idea of cross-play in Fallout 76, Howard simply said, "Sony isn't as helpful as everyone would like."

Sony's reluctance to allow cross-play on the PS4 is pretty well-documented at this point. It all started a couple of years ago with the console release of Rocket League. Microsoft and developer Psyonix were both ready to allow cross-play in Rocket League, but Sony resisted.

Then, in June, Fortnite players discovered that Sony locked their Epic Games accounts to PS4, preventing them from playing Fortnite with that same account on the newly-launched Nintendo Switch version. That left a fair few gamers upset, and as a result, pressure has been mounting on Sony to reverse its cross-play policy.

Sony recently said that it's exploring solutions to this problem, so hopefully this whole saga ends with the company deciding to finally allow cross-play with the PS4. If it does, then maybe there's a future where Fallout 76 is cross-play enabled, but for now, it looks like you'll be limited to playing with friends on the same platform.