Fallout 76 Doesn’t Have Cross-Play Because “It Wasn’t Designed That Way” Says Todd Howard

Todd Howard, game director and executive producer for Bethesda Game Studios, recently explained why Fallout 76 doesn’t have cross-play. According to Howard, the studio is looking into it, but “it wasn’t designed that way from the beginning.”

The news comes from a Kinda Funny Games interview in which Howard explained why Fallout 76 still doesn’t have cross-play nearly six years after launch. According to Howard, the team mainly focuses on cross-progression rather than cross-play.

“From us, the more important thing is cross-progression than cross-play and we do separate them. We’d love to have it all, it’s something we are looking at but I will say it’s quite–you know the way that it was architected from the beginning is quite a technical lift.” Howard said. “Not saying we aren’t doing anything. We are looking at it and seeing where that’s going to impact people.”

As the interview continued, Howard continued to express how he believes that cross-play is “important” and it’s something that the team is going to be “really really mindful about,” but the studio’s primary focus is still going to be on cross-progression.

Howard explained that Starfield is an excellent example of this because players can jump between platforms primarily because the game was “architected that way.” Howard even joked that a big reason why cross-progression is important to them is that sometimes the team isn’t able to pick up from their last save, so because of this, it moves up the to-do list.

For more news on what came out of the interview, check out our story detailing how a new Starfield expansion is coming this fall, alongside a new ship update scheduled for this week.