Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V is confirmed for the next generation of video game consoles, but will these new versions allow Xbox and PlayStation players to finally interact with each other? Despite the massive popularity of Grand Theft Auto Online, Rockstar has yet to allow crossplay between PS4, PC, and Xbox One GTAO players, but it is something many fans have been asking about for years.
Grand Theft Auto Online has gone through multiple iterations and updates since its initial release, and now boasts both an incredibly large player base as well as a plethora of activities, role-playing opportunities, and missions for players to engage in. It seems like there is always something crazy happening in GTA Online (just look at the massive community-based GTAO Alien event earlier this year) but many players feel like Rockstar is unnecessarily splitting their fans up by not allowing PS4 and Xbox players to play together.
With the announcement that Grand Theft Auto V is once again coming to the next generation of consoles (making this the third generation GTAV has been a part of) it would make sense for Rockstar to finally support crossplay for GTA Online. It's been revealed that the next-gen versions of GTAO will have special content exclusive to the newer consoles, and while that likely means cross-generational play (from PS4 to PS5, for example) won't be possible between players, it doesn't mean crossplay altogether is completely off the table.
GTA Online Crossplay: Is It Ever Coming?
Rockstar Games has been incredibly quiet on just what exactly Grand Theft Auto V on PS5 and Xbox Series X will look like. While the game isn't arriving with the launch of the next-gen consoles in November, it will be releasing shortly thereafter in 2021, and thanks to the massive amount of Xbox and PS5 pre-orders which have been taking place there will likely be a large number of players with either one console or the other waiting to jump in to GTA Online. Unfortunately, it's unlikely players on either console will get to engage with each other.
It's been seven years since the initial release of Grand Theft Auto V (something fans were quick to remind Rockstar of recently on GTA 5's anniversary) and yet, despite content queries and requests from fans, crossplay has not been implemented into GTA Online yet. While there is always a chance Rockstar is planning something big, like crossplay, for the next generation of game consoles, it's far more likely that they will stick to what they know works. GTA Online took a lot of time to become as popular as it is today, and with the amount of players and servers Rockstar has to juggle already, adding in cross-platform support might make the whole project too unwieldy.
The fact that Rockstar's game after Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2, also doesn't feature crossplay is important to consider as well. If Rockstar was planning on adding crossplay to GTA Online at some point, it's likely that they would have used the fledgling Red Dead Online to test that functionality out. Since this didn't happen, and it hasn't been very long at all since the PC release of Red Dead Redemption 2, it's safe to say Rockstar doesn't appear to be interested in crossplay for any of their games, let alone Grand Theft Auto V on PS5 and Xbox Series X... at least for now.