F1 2020 Game: NFS Heat crossplay could signal the future for F1 games


Need for Speed Heat is receiving its June update today, and it's a big one.

Visual updates, big fixes and corrections to Palm City world are all included, but something else really caught our attention. EA are "Shifting Gears Into the Future", because Criterion have enabled crossplay in NFS Heat.

This is huge, as Need For Speed is the first major racing franchise to enable crossplay between Playstation and Xbox.

This can have far-reaching consequences for other racing games, including the upcoming Formula 1 game. Will F1 2020 get crossplay though? We'll delve into the details and give our take on that in this piece!

What is Crossplay?

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FLAWLESS VICTORY: Mortal Kombat is one of many games to included crossplay

Cross-platform play (or crossplay) is a feature that's becoming more and more common in recent years. Crossplay allows two players of the same game to play with or against each other, despite being on different consoles.

It eliminates the boundaries between users of different consoles and benefits both the players and the game developers.

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Say, for example, that you have a PS4 and you want to play Minecraft: Bedrock edition with your friend, but he's on Xbox One. Crossplay allows you to be able to explore Minecraftverse together.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Rocket League and Mortal Kombat XI are a few of the games which have already enabled crossplay.

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And now, Need for Speed have joined the crossplay lobby, as Heat has introduced the feature today.

We explored whether F1 2020 should have crossplay included in a previous article, but will the feature be enabled for the upcoming game?

Crossplay is a matter of time

f1 2020 Ricciardo screenshot
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THE NEXT LEVEL OF MULTIPLAYER: Crossplay is an opportunity Codies can't turn down

If there's one thing that F1 2020 developers Codemasters have been doing more of in recent times, it's listening. Listening to the concerns of both the players and the F1 drivers.

Split-screen and online replays have been confirmed already, so crossplay is a definite possibility.

Fans have been crying out for crossplay in multiplayer and there's no reason why Codies can't include it in F1 2020.

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Crossplay will make a massive difference to the multiplayer experience, as online lobbies will be full more often, especially later in the game's life cycle.

Even if F1 2020 doesn't have the feature at launch, it could be added later via an update, like NFS Heat did.

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Crossplay would also potentially boost sales of the game, as it would let Xbox One, Playstation and PC gamers all to compete in the same lobbies.

The competition would be better, as players from all platforms would race against each other, raising the standard of the races across the board.

F1 2020 is available on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia on 10th July.

For more articles like this, take a look at our F1, Motorsport, and Need For Speed pages.