'Overwatch' Cross-Platform Support Not Planned But Still Possible, Says Blizzard

The Overwatch community has absolutely exploded in size, growing to more than seven million players during the game’s first week on the market, but the same barriers that have always separated console gamers are making it difficult for many friends to play Overwatch together. But it sounds like Blizzard is at least open to the idea of removing those barriers at some point in the future.

If you’ve spent any time with Overwatch in the last two weeks, you’re undoubtedly already aware that the smash hit multiplayer shooter is entirely devoid of cross-platform support. While it isn’t shocking to see PS4 and Xbox One owners kept separate, since that’s historically been the case with pretty much everything on the market, some fans were surprised to hear there wouldn’t be any PC/PS4 or PC/Xbox One cross-play. Granted, Blizzard has a pretty good reason for keeping each platform separate, citing concerns over the unfair nature of pitting mouse and keyboard users against those playing on a DualShock 4 or Xbox One controller. But it sounds like the company might be willing to build a bridge between those islands one day.

According to a new tweet, Blizzard plans to ” keep an eye ” on the demand for cross-platform support. While the studio is unlikely to change its stance on the mixing keyboard/controller players, it’s not crazy to think Blizzard could join Rocket League and Killer Instinct on the short list of games that will let PS4 and Xbox One players compete against one another. We’ll just have to hope there’s significant demand from the Overwatch community.

In other Overwatch news, it seems like Blizzard still hasn’t quite pinned down a return window for ranked matchmaking. Originally, the studio said it planned to open competitive play back up during the first part of June , which clearly isn’t happening, before announcing plans to launch ranked play sometime in mid- or late July . Now, the latest word from the Overwatch Twitter account is competitive matchmaking will return before the end of June . We still don’t have an exact date for the return of ranked play but the ever-shifting date will undoubtedly generate a fair amount of discussion and excitement in the Overwatch community.

Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for additional Overwatch coverage throughout 2016 and for as long as Blizzard supports Overwatch in the months ahead.