There has been a lot of support for the cross-play movement as of late, and it seems that gamers are done letting what console they play on determine which of their friends they can play with. nWay Inc, the developer of Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid seems to understand these pleas, as its game is now the first fighting game to be five way cross-platform.
Recently, Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid was added to Stadia, meaning it is now available on all five major current gen consoles: PC, PS4, Stadia, Switch, and Xbox One. The game's Twitter page proudly shared its standing as the first ever fighting game to accomplish cross-play between all platforms.
For a while, Sony's PS4 was actually the main roadblock to crossplay, but it seems that the company is lightening up a bit on that front. With any luck, more games will follow suit soon.
What makes this move particularly impressive is the fact that Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is a fighting game. In general, fighting games rely on strong netcode to ensure that players don't experience lag during online matches, and cross-play can cause issues with this. With that in mind, it is no surprise that other games in the genre haven't tried to achieve this, and it is even more impressive that a Power Rangers game of all things did achieve it first. It's worth noting that the game doesn't launch on Stadia until June 1st, but it is safe to say that nWay Inc has this one in the bag.
This move should also help the game to grow its player base, as it is not quite as well known as other fighting games. Now that it has made history and become available on yet another platform, odds are, as the Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid Twitter account puts it, fans should "expect the Ranger Nation to grow" significantly. The ability to play with friends despite console choice has been something people have desired for a long time, so it is great to see this game providing that option.
If this trend catches on, the infamous console wars could be coming to an end sooner rather than later. People will always have a favorite, but once games stop being contained by the console they're played on, boundaries between players will start to dissolve as well.
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid becomes available on Stadia on June 1st.
Source: IGN
