Does Elden Ring have crossplay?
Best answer: No, unfortunately, Elden Ring does not support crossplay. If you want to play with your friends, you'll need to be on the same platform together.
Elden Ring is Bandai Namco and FromSoftware's latest action role-playing game, setting players loose in the Lands Between, a world created in collaboration with A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin. Based on our player impressions and general critical acclaim, you're probably wondering how quickly you can dive into one of the best Xbox games with your friends now that the big expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, is on the way.
Multiplayer is a large component of many FromSoftware titles and Elden Ring is no exception, allowing players to take part in co-op, summoning each other for battle, or even invading other players' worlds.
Unfortunately, there are some restrictions in place. Elden Ring does not support cross-platform play, so if you've picked the game up on an Xbox Series X, you won't be able to play with anyone who instead decides to buy the game on PC or PS5. If you've got anyone you like playing with and you both own multiple platforms, be sure to talk together and figure out where you're going to play.
With that in mind, there is crossplay across consoles that are within the same "family" of devices. This means if somebody is playing Elden Ring on Xbox One, you can play with them if you're on Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S. In the same vein, players on PS4 can team up with anyone that's playing on PS5. Given the general supply shortage right now, this is definitely helpful for anyone that hasn't been able to upgrade to a current-generation console from Microsoft or Sony. PC players are left by themselves no matter what, though.
Crossplay used to be relatively rare but is growing rapidly, with more multiplayer games across various publishers supporting it. For example, first-party games from Microsoft such as Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 support cross-platform multiplayer for anybody on Xbox consoles and PC. Many of the most popular multiplayer games, such as Fortnite or Apex Legends also support crossplay, regardless of where people choose to play.
We'll have to wait and see if something changes in the future for Elden Ring, but frankly, the game released years ago and there's been no change. We wouldn't expect to see an update that shakes things up here, or even ever. If you want to see crossplay added to Elden Ring or other future FromSoftware games, we recommend very respectfully reaching out to Bandai Namco and stating that it's a feature you'd like to see added.
Does Elden Ring support cross-progression?
Cross-progression has also grown in popularity over the past several years. With more and more hardcore players owning more than one gaming device, it's nice to keep playing your game no matter what hardware you're using. Unfortunately, Elden Ring does not support cross-progression or cross-save functionality. If, for example, you started playing on your Xbox, you wouldn't have access to the same save files when playing the game on your Steam Deck.
The sole exception here is, again, transferring saves within console families. If you started playing Elden Ring on Xbox One and want to continue on Xbox Series X|S, you can do so. Likewise, PlayStation 4 players can keep their progress if they transfer their saves to the PlayStation 5 version of the game.