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With the release of FIFA 23 looming closer, football fans have a lot of new features to look forward to, with crossplay being a big one. Electronic Arts integrated an online feature into the premier football series way back in 2001. Eleven years later, crossplay has finally come to the franchise, exciting fans all over the globe.
The much-requested feature was officially included in the last EA FIFA game after a successful beta test in FIFA 22. Announced in July with a deep dive, the developers laid down the exact manner in which the feature will be implemented. It might sound like you can play with people from any platform. But as it turns out, there are certain limitations to the feature.
Notwithstanding that, the overall news seems to be more positive than negative. Aside from Pro Clubs, almost all online game modes will have crossplay at launch and players can opt out of the feature at any time, increasing the flexibility for those who don't want to compete on different platforms.
Playing with friends on other platforms is fine and dandy, but many have wondered how the new feature will affect competitive modes such as FUT. With a mere three weeks left till release, let's break down what crossplay in FIFA 23 actually means.
Everything you need to know about crossplay in FIFA 23
From the get-go, the crossplay feature will be available to players so that they can compete with others in the same console generation. As explained in the chart above, PS4 and Xbox One may play among themselves while the next generation consoles, along with PC and Stadia, make the other pool.
Competitive players are quite excited about the possibility of playing across platforms as it won't only increase competition but also allow for leaderboards featuring scores from across the gamerbase.
Global leaderboards will at last be global, encompassing high scores from both console and PC players. One can also easily check local leaderboards if they only want to view opponents on their platform.
It is important to note that global leaderboards will have no generation lock, giving a true pan-platform view. Meanwhile, local leaderboards feature all consoles from the same brand, meaning PlayStation 4 and 5 leaderboards will remain fused.
Citing technical difficulties, EA has announced that Pro Clubs and any mode which boasts cooperative gameplay will not have the feature available upon launch. Here are all the game modes that will crossplay at the time of launch:
- FUT Division Rivals (except Co-Op)
- FUT Champions
- FUT Ultimate Online Draft
- FUT Online Friendlies (except Co-Op)
- FUT Play a Friend
- Online Friendlies
- Online Seasons
Segregating the markets
Crossplay, on paper, has the potential to open up the playerbase, exposing them to a large pool of contenders as they play online matchmaking. But is the bigger the better? FIFA on PC has a reputation for cheating and many have voiced their concerns about console and PC crossplay marring the game with debilitating bugs or cheaters.
With crossplay coming to FIFA 23 FUT, a large part of the playerbase was skeptical about EA merging the FUT Transfer market. However, people worried about bots farming coins and artificially manipulating prices can rest easy as the transfer markets are segregated between consoles and PC.
All consoles and Stadia players will have a shared FUT transfer market pool. Furthermore, PC and Switch will have individual pools for each platform. This arrangement is non-negotiable and FIFA 23 players cannot opt out of shared markets.
While console owners might feel like segration is good, many on PC deem it unfair. There are multiple FIFA 23 threads doing the rounds on Reddit and Twitter discussing the point.
As it stands, FIFA 23 seems to be launching with separate FUT markets on September 30. And with crossplay, EA seem to want to make a substantial change to their last FIFA title. Only time will tell how it shapes the online scene.
