Developers at Bethesda are investigating the addition of crossplay to Fallout 76, their seven-year-old multiplayer game, but have emphasized that it is not planned for the near future due to significant technical challenges. In a recent interview, creative director Jon Rush and production director Bill LaCoste acknowledged player demand while outlining the difficulties of retrofitting the feature post-launch. This comes amid renewed interest in the game following the success of the Fallout TV series' second season.
Fallout 76, released in 2018 as an online survival spin-off in the Fallout series, has seen substantial improvements since the 2020 Wastelanders update, which introduced NPCs and new questlines, transforming it into a more robust multiplayer RPG. Despite these enhancements and the addition of cross-progression, crossplay between platforms like PS5, Xbox, and PC remains absent, a point of frustration for fans over the years.
In an interview with Polygon published on February 9, 2026, Bethesda's creative director Jon Rush stated, “We are looking into it, and we have plans to try to scope out what that work is going to entail for us... It’s just not in the immediate plans for us. We know players want it.” Production director Bill LaCoste echoed this, noting that crossplay is not in the short term and highlighting the “huge technical hurdles” involved in retrofitting the system. He explained, “It’s just huge technical hurdles that are things that you tackle before release... so going back and retrofitting it to do that, when you have different places that players are pointing into, and now you’re having to worry about entitlements and account purchases and currency.” These challenges are compounded by the Creation Engine's known instability.
Historically, crossplay has been a contentious issue. In 2018, former Bethesda marketing head Pete Hines described it as “essentially non-negotiable” for other projects like the Elder Scrolls card game, yet it was not implemented for Fallout 76. By 2024, executive producer Todd Howard prioritized cross-progression, calling crossplay a “technical lift” due to the game's original architecture.
A late 2025 roundtable interview had previously dismissed crossplay outright, but the latest comments suggest Bethesda is not ignoring fan requests and will continue investigating. The game's popularity has surged, with Steam concurrent players rising from 13,000 on December 15, 2025, to 32,000 on February 8, 2026, partly due to a free trial and the Fallout TV season 2's impact, which has also led to new cosmetics like $30 power armor items. A current-gen upgrade is slated for later in 2026, but crossplay's timeline remains uncertain.
