Paladins Dev Talks Benefits Of Cross-Play, Calls On Sony To "Stop Playing Favorites"

One of the most buzzed-about topics in games in recent years has been and continues to be cross-play. Now, one prominent developer has spoken up to talk about the benefits of allowing players on competing systems to play together. Stew Chisam, the CEO of Smite and Paladins developer Hi-Rez, outlined some of the benefits of cross-play in a post on Twitter.

For Paladins, which supports cross-play between Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, Chisam said overall match quality is improved thanks to cross-play. Wait-times for matches is down 30 percent, while the quality of matches is better because the level spread is down 40 percent. In all, Hi-Rez is reportedly seeing an 80 percent reduction in what it calls "bad" matches.

Anyone who has played a ranked multiplayer game knows how frustrating it can be when you're matched with players who have a much higher skill level, so it's good to see the statistics seemingly indicate that cross-play helps improve things. Whether or not other games see these results remains to be seen.

Chisam is an outspoken proponent for tearing down the walls between consoles to allow for wider adoption of cross-play. Just recently, Chisam said on Twitter that he wants PlayStation to "stop playing favorites," and allow cross-play/cross-progression "for everyone." He added that Smite, Paladins, and the battle royale game Realm Royale, are "ready to go" for cross-play on PS4, so the developer is just waiting for Sony to give the go-ahead.

Microsoft has supported cross-play for a while already between select games, such as Paladins, Rocket League, and Fortnite. But it took Sony a while longer to allow cross-play with PS4, only just recently allowing it for Fortnite and later Rocket League.

Would you like to see more adoption of cross-play in the future? Let us know in the comments below!