Elder Scrolls Online is getting crossplay support 12 years after its launch, Zenimax Online has confirmed. What makes this such an exciting update is the fact that ESO was never designed with crossplay and cross-progression in mind.
In addition to platform-wide restrictions, each platform has regional limitations. It means that players on PS5’s North American server can’t invite friends on PS5’s European server. Things are about to change, but there’s a long road ahead.
Since it’s a complicated feature to integrate, ZeniMax Online Studios has revealed that crossplay won’t be coming to ESO in 2026. There is no release date or window to look forward to either. However, Schlitt did provide details on how the process is coming together.
ESO crossplay is in ‘active development’
As pointed out by FRVR, ESO‘s player team lead, Kira Ross Schlitt, confirmed recently in a roundtable Q&A session that a team of developers is actively working on implementing crossplay in Elder Scrolls Online. She also added that “it [crossplay] touches basically everything in the game and we [ZeniMax Online Studios] really need to make sure that it feels good.”
Additionally, Schlitt discussed how the studio is being very thoughtful about it. “We don’t want it to be a destructive experience when it comes online to the very best of our ability,” she added. “So there are a lot of considerations that we have to take about what does it feels like when we bring people together, how does that work successfully, how does everyone feel excited and empowered and not behind, right.”
That’s pretty much everything we know about crossplay in ESO. Earlier this year, executive producer Susan Kath had also revealed that crossplay wasn’t part of ESO’s 2026 roadmap. She did, however, confirm that we will be getting both crossplay and cross-progression at the same time, which means you’ll be able to carry your progress across platforms–absolutely wild stuff!
Having crossplay in ESO will especially aid solo players who struggle to matchmake for high-end activities, such as dungeons and raids. This has been particularly challenging for console players, especially on Xbox, with a deteriorating player base.
I have struggled greatly with the Dungeon Finder at times when trying to matchmake for specific dungeon runs. Additionally, certain zones are surprisingly empty at times, making public events and world bosses all the more challenging to undertake without a team. With crossplay, these prolonged issues can be fixed.
While crossplay won’t be coming until 2027, there’s another console-specific update launching soon that could fix some of the aforementioned issues on Xbox.
ESO gets Xbox Play Anywhere support on June 2nd
If you own ESO on Xbox, you can resume your progress on PC via the Xbox PC client starting June 2, 2026. ESO is getting Xbox Play Anywhere support. It means that if you buy the game once, you can access and play it across all Xbox devices.
As mentioned above, your progress carries over. For instance, if you play ESO on the Xbox NA server, you can use the same account to resume progress on the PC Xbox NA server. Please note that region restrictions will persist, at least until full crossplay integration, so you won’t be able to hop on from NA to EU or vice versa, or matchmake with players on other servers.
Fortunately, you won’t need an active Game Pass subscription to play ESO on PC via the Xbox Client, Susan Kath recently confirmed on Reddit. It should be the same for handheld devices such as the ROG Ally with Xbox PC client integration.
