Studio Wildcard has it working internally, but Sony and Microsoft still at odds.
Cross-network online play is one of those things every developer wants to add, but Sony is still won't play ball. The developers behind Rocket League have already talked about adding cross-network play and now another developer is taking up the fight. Ark: Survival Evolved has reached its full launch today and developer Studio Wildcard says that it has cross-network action working internally, it just needs approval from all parties involved.
"Look, it's a thing that everybody asks for and everybody wants to do, and we can't really say anything other than what it is. It's easy for us to do technically and it's just policy issues, and until that gets worked out we're not different than any other game, even the big games that want to do it. It's not really something we can solve on our own," Wildcard co-founder Jesse Rapczak told Eurogamer.
"There's nothing preventing it. And yes, we have it running internally. We think it's cool and we would like to make it happen, so if the policies change we'd like to be first in line to turn it on. It honestly would not take us more than a few days to enable it," added fellow co-founder Jeremy Stieglitz. "Microsoft and Sony need to work it out."
As it stands, PC and Xbox One players won't be able to enjoy the game together either, as the Steam version isn't compatible with its console counterpart. This is because the Steam version has mod support and generally has a later build than the Xbox One version. The studio will be offering a Windows 10 version of the game that will be cross-compatible and Xbox One owners won't have to purchase the game again.