Getting Diablo 4 Crossplay Going
Alright, so Diablo 4 dropped and the big thing was playing with anyone, right? PC, Xbox, PlayStation, all holding hands in Sanctuary. Sounded great. I’m mostly on PC, but my buddies are split. Got one on PS5, another usually on Xbox. So, first thing was getting everyone connected.
Turns out, you have to have a * account. No way around it. Doesn’t matter if you bought it on console, you gotta link it up. So, I logged into my old * thing. Easy enough for me. My PS5 friend had to make one, then link his PlayStation Network ID. He said the linking part was a bit fiddly, had to do it through a web browser, not really smooth inside the game itself. The Xbox guy already had one from Overwatch or something, so he was quicker.
Next step: adding each other. This uses the BattleTag system. You need that name and the number string after it. Like ‘PlayerName#1234’.
- I opened the social menu in D4.
- Went to the ‘add friend’ bit.
- Typed in their BattleTags carefully. Misspell it and you get nothing.
The requests went through pretty fast, actually. They got notifications, accepted, and boom, we were on each other’s lists. That part worked slicker than I expected, gotta give ’em that.
Party Time and Playing Together
Okay, friends added. Now to actually group up. Inviting was simple. Just clicked their name, hit ‘Invite to Party’. They joined up no problem. We had a full cross-platform party: me on PC, one PS5, one Xbox Series X.
First thing we noticed? Voice chat. It’s built-in and works across platforms. Mostly. Sometimes the Xbox guy’s mic would cut out, or the PS5 audio sounded a bit tinny compared to mine on Discord (which we eventually switched back to, honestly, just more reliable). But the in-game option is there and functional enough if you don’t have other options.
Actually playing? Felt pretty seamless. Dungeons, open world events, nightmare sigils – it just worked. I didn’t feel any specific lag tied to the crossplay itself. You see their character, they see yours, demons die. The core gameplay loop wasn’t broken by the different systems.
However, sometimes you could kinda feel the difference. Like, targeting felt maybe a bit clunkier for the console guys in chaotic fights compared to my mouse clicks. They never really complained heavily, but you’d hear the occasional “Ugh, targeted the wrong mob” over voice chat. Minor stuff, mostly.
Trading items worked fine too. Dropped loot on the ground, they picked it up. No weird restrictions there.
So, overall? Yeah, the Diablo 4 crossplay does what it says on the tin. It lets you play with friends regardless of their box. The setup has a minor hurdle with the * linking, and the built-in voice chat isn’t perfect, but getting into the game and killing stuff together? It’s solid. Didn’t feel like a tacked-on feature, felt pretty baked in from the start. Made the launch way more fun being able to group with everyone I knew from day one, not waiting for them to buy the ‘right’ version.
