Apex Legends crossplay details leaked: Potential release date, clubs

Calum Patterson
Apex Legends logo and crossplay

As fans eagerly await the arrival of cross-play in Apex Legends, which was first announced in June, data miners have been busy finding out as much as they can from the game’s code, revealing more information about how it will work.

Cross-platform play, allowing players on console, PC, and Nintendo Switch, to all play with and against each other, is a feature that Respawn Entertainment said early on was “important” for Apex Legends.

However, the game was not originally developed with cross-play functionality, meaning it required lots of post-launch dev time to ensure it would run smoothly and provide what players expect.

Apex Legends crossplay with all platforms listed
Crossplay is coming at the same time as the Steam launch, this fall.

Reliable data miner Shrugtal has compiled all of his findings from the game’s code relating to cross-play, to provide a clearer picture of what’s in-store when it finally becomes available.

How will cross-play work in Apex Legends?

Some very basic code relates to cross-play chatrooms, and other social features. There is also an explanation of how cross-play will work using EADP (Electronic Arts Digital Platform), which will allow players on all platforms to send friend requests for example, rather than using the specific platform’s own system.

With this, there will also be a new UI system, replacing the current platform-specific UI, for friend requests, game invites and more, and will be “far more substantial” than the current social tab in Apex Legends.

As we covered previously, there is also some code that suggests testing has taken place for cross-progression, but this isn’t confirmed yet.

Clubs feature in Apex Legends

Clubs tab in Apex Legends
The ‘Club’ tab was shown in the Apex Legends Season 6 devstream.

Clubs is a feature that was previously leaked and then shown, possibly by mistake, in the Season 6 devstream. It’s unclear still exactly what the feature will do, but is expected to help with matchmaking when cross-play arrives. In the latest patch, Shrugtal says that Clubs were updated to support cross-play specifically.

Collection event & Cross-play release?

Perhaps the most anticipated detail is the actual release date of all these features. Shrugtal, as with other data miners, expect a new collection event to start on September 15, and this could line up with the launch of cross-play too.

Although it’s possible that cross-play would be delayed until Season 7, the devs may want to avoid this as it would cause an overload of new content, and thus new bugs, all at once. It’s reasonable to expect that they would want cross-play implemented and out of the way before launching a new season.

Content creators and community members have also predicted a September 15 release for cross-play, again lining up with the start of the collection event.

 

As always, it must be stressed that this information is based on data mining, and things can always change during development.

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About The Author

Calum is Dexerto's Managing Editor, based in Scotland. Joining Dexerto in 2017, Calum has years of experience covering esports, gaming and online entertainment, and now leads the team to deliver the best coverage in these areas. An expert on all things Twitch and gaming influencers, he's also an expert in popular shooters like Apex Legends, CS2 and Call of Duty. You can contact Calum at calum.patterson@dexerto.com.