I've found pages and forum posts that come close to answering this question but that don't answer it squarely. Various people...
- feel it's obvious that BF3 won't support cross-platform multiplayer.
- insist they've seen it.
- say it'll be console-to-console, but not PC-to-console.
- speculate that cross-platform support will be added.
Does BF3 allow people from different platforms to play together? (And if it doesn't, does anyone know of an authoritative statement from EA or DICE about future support?)
I'm specifically interested in PC-to-Xbox, but would appreciate any cross-platform information.
84 Answers
Currently, Battlefield 3 does not support cross-platform multiplayer.
According to this article, which quotes the studio head, Robert Bach, there are numerous differences between the PC and Console versions of Battlefield 3:
Limitations caused by hardware requirements causes the maximum number of players in a game to vary between versions:
The biggest difference between the PC and console version of Battlefield 3 is that we have 64 players on the PC and 24 players maximum on console...We tried to get more players in [to the console version] but then you need to scale down all the graphics, scale down all the destructibility, and sometimes you need to scale down all the map sizes
Alterations were also done on the maps themselves to make them work better for smaller numbers of players:
When we say they are smaller, it's not that we have cut them in half. But we tried to compact them slightly to keep the action up.
Judging by these differences, and the licensing/requirements mentioned by Stof, it is extremely unlikely that there will be support for such a feature.
On a side note, having such a feature would be a huge win for this game franchise, which is in constant competition with the folks over at Call of Duty, and I'd hope that any game promoter/marketer would have immediately jumped on it as a major selling point if it was a plausible future enhancement.
3It's impossible there'll be a XBox 360 <-> PS3 cross gaming because both platforms forbid it in their certification requirements.
It's possible there'll be a PC <-> XBox 360 because it's technically possible but I doubt it'll happen because if I remember well, it requires the PC version to use GFWL among other things and BF3 doesn't use that.
No info on PC <-> PS3 crossgaming but at this point, I doubt it'll happen. I don't think a game did that already at least, not like the PC <-> XBox which shows prior examples.
1It's unlikely there will ever be any of these, due to mods and the like on the PC side, the fact that the console guys have to pay, the fact the console guys would get slaughtered by mouse users and probably more.
I don't know a definitive answer of statement.
I don't think one has to be made as far as consoles go. There has yet to ever be a console to console multiplayer (PS3 to Xbox 360) game. I'm going to go out on a limb, and say Battlefield 3 will follow those same rules. There have been PC to console ones, but I can't speak to that.
5
