Crossplay
Crossplay lets players on different platforms and hardware, such as console, PC, mobile, VR headsets and web browsers, play together in the same match. It makes matchmaking pools larger, which improves both queue times and match quality. It also forces one shared authority and one shared build pipeline, which is why dedicated servers usually come with it.
Also called
cross-play, cross-platform
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Why Is Crossplay So Hard to Run Peer-to-Peer?
In peer-to-peer multiplayer, players' machines connect to each other and one of them hosts the match. Across platforms, three things get in the way:
Connectivity. Home routers and console network settings often block incoming connections, which is why consoles report a NAT type. Two players behind strict NAT may not reach each other directly, and no single platform service brokers the connection for everyone.
Sessions. Each platform has its own system for sessions, invites and friends, and so does each VR store, such as Meta Quest's and PICO's. For Destiny 2's crossplay, Bungie rebuilt networking, identity, invites, voice and text chat to work across Sony, Microsoft, Valve and Google at once (GDC 2022).
Trust. The host's machine decides the match. A PC is easier to modify than a console, and the host plays with no network delay while everyone else plays through it.
A relay server fixes the first problem by forwarding traffic, but the host is still a player, so the other two remain.
What solves all three is an authoritative layer that sits on no platform. Every client connects out to it, so NAT matters far less, and it decides what happened, so no player's hardware does. That layer is a dedicated server, which is why the two usually ship together.
Why Must Every Platform Run the Same Version?
Every client in a crossplay match has to speak the same network protocol, so a patch that changes it splits players into those who have it and those who don't. Across platforms, console updates usually pass through each platform holder's certification first, so the same build can be approved on different days. Studios typically pick one of three answers:
Hold the release until every platform has approved it, and ship everywhere at once.
Run servers that accept two versions for a window, which keeps everyone together at the cost of supporting both.
Split players by version until the patch lands everywhere.
The third is the easiest to build, and the one players notice. Many "crossplay not working" searches after a patch are this split, seen from the player's side.
How Do You Keep a Crossplay Queue From Splitting?
Crossplay helps keep matchmaking pools filled, and a filled pool gives everyone shorter queues and better-matched games. Every split by platform, input device or version gives some of that back. A split queue is two smaller queues, each slower and each with fewer good matches to choose from, the same cost that splitting players by region carries.
Softer tools usually keep more of the pool:
Prefer, then relax. Match by input device or platform first, and loosen the rule as wait time grows, rather than keeping a hard wall.
Group by latency, not platform. Measured ping keeps distant players apart without dividing anyone by device.
Split only where the stakes are. Destiny 2 kept cooperative modes fully crossplay and split only competitive modes into console and PC pools, one way: a console player grouped with a PC player joins the PC pool, never the reverse (Bungie, GDC 2022).
Each player opt-out is a small split too, worth measuring once it ships.
Where Should a Crossplay Match's Server Run?
Close to everyone in it. A crossplay lobby mixes networks as much as devices: a console on a wired connection, a PC or a VR headset on Wi-Fi, a phone on cellular, a browser behind an office network. They all play on one server, so its location decides the online experience for the whole group, not for one platform.
A fixed region places it where most of that region's players are. Per-match placement starts from the players actually in the match. The difference is largest for groups that span a border or an ocean.
Extra hops count too. Valheim's crossplay backend sends traffic through a relay so players can join without port forwarding (Iron Gate documentation), which adds a leg to every trip.
Placement is where most of the latency is won. In replays of a AAA publisher's live traffic, dedicated server placement on Edgegap cut average round-trip time by 58% against public cloud (platform data, as of 18 September 2026).
That matters most for fairness. Crossplay puts a console, a PC and a headset on equal footing in the game's rules. A server placed for the group keeps their connections on equal footing too: similar ping for everyone, so no one's platform or home network decides an exchange before the players do.
A word from our sponsor (ourselves!)
Most lag comes from distance, not from code. Edgegap's Edge Cloud is a distributed network with up to 615+ locations available on demand, so each match runs at the best available location for its players. Independent replays of live studio traffic measured a 58% drop in average round-trip time compared with public cloud.
Edgegap's Take (just our opinion, take it with a grain of salt!)
What a Crossplay Server Actually Needs
Teams often hold back on crossplay because they picture dedicated servers as large, expensive machines. They don't have to be.
Bungie's activity host for Destiny was a stripped-down build of about 45 MB, running at 10 Hz, with close to 5,000 instances on one 40-core server (our Destiny deep dive, GDC 2015). That's the model for most games: a multi-room server running many matches in one process, or a small relay-like server built on a lightweight library such as LightNet, sized in fractions of a vCPU.
Small is enough to be the neutral authority crossplay needs, and much gets easier downstream: fuller pools, shorter queues, no host to trust, one server build to patch.
On Edgegap, servers like these are placed per match, for the players in it.
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