10 Games Still Stuck in Their Own Platform Prisons

I have friends scattered across every console ecosystem like dice after a particularly enthusiastic board game flip. Some are loyal to the glowing green X, others worship at the blue light altar, and a few have sold their souls to the modular shrine of PC. It’s 2026, and you’d think we’d be past the era of asking “which platform?” before sending a game invite. But no, plenty of titles still treat crossplay like a strange foreign concept, as if connecting players across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC is equivalent to asking a goldfish to ride a bicycle. Every time I boot up one of these games without crossplay, I feel like I’m trying to drink soup with a fork — technically possible, but painfully inefficient and a little sad.

Here are some games I wish would finally break down those platform walls and let us all play in the same sandbox.

Injustice 2

I adore the idea of beating my friends to a pulp with Batman or Supergirl, and then blaming it on the controller. Injustice 2’s online scene might not be the bustling colosseum it once was, but it’s still a blast when you can actually connect. The catch? Both players have to be on the exact same platform. It’s like agreeing to a duel but finding out the weapons only work if you’re standing in the same room. You can share a couch for split-screen, but if your rival lives across the country and chose a different console, you might as well send a handwritten letter proposing a rock-paper-scissors match instead. The game’s netcode insists on keeping friends apart, making it a lonely Gotham indeed.

Dark Souls 3

Summoning a friend in Dark Souls 3 feels like sending a carrier pigeon into a haunted forest. The system is arcane, but when it works, your buddy drops in as a phantom and helps you survive a boss that’s been treating you like a chew toy. However, there’s a cruel twist: no crossplay. If I’m on PlayStation and my friend is on Xbox, we’re both hollowing out alone. The game’s difficulty is designed to encourage jolly cooperation, yet it locks that cooperation behind platform borders like a stubborn old cat refusing to leave a sunny windowsill. It’s like being given a lifeline that only works if you’re both born under the same astrological sign.

Dying Light 2

After progressing a bit into the campaign, you unlock the ability to invite a friend to parkour across zombie-infested rooftops. Sounds perfect, right? Except the game insists your friend must play on the same platform. It’s like planning an epic road trip but finding out the car only starts if both passengers have the same type of shoes. You might be ready to dropkick zombies in perfect harmony, but the platform barrier acts as an invisible fence. For a game that thrives on shared chaos, it’s baffling that crossplay remains a distant dream, leaving solo runners to miss out on the beautiful symphony of synchronized grappling hooks.

Gotham Knights

Patrolling Gotham City as the Bat-family should be a team sport, and the game lets you invite a friend after a short tutorial. You can even match with strangers, which is great. But if your partner happens to prefer a different console, you’re both stuck monitoring separate crime-ridden streets like neighbors who never talk over the fence. The developers have stated there are no plans to add cross-platform play, which feels like building a two-seater Batcycle and then welding a partition down the middle. We want to protect Gotham together, not in parallel universes.

It Takes Two

This game is a co-op masterpiece so committed to partnership it literally cannot be played alone. You’d think a game called “It Takes Two” would bend over backwards to bring any two people together, regardless of platform. Instead, it offers cross-generation play (PS4 with PS5, for example) but draws the line at cross-platform. It’s like opening a restaurant dedicated to couples and then refusing entry to anyone who didn’t arrive in the same model of car. The entire premise is cooperation, yet the technology to unite players across ecosystems is left on the cutting room floor. I’m still waiting for the day I can toss my sweetheart into a snake pit while they play on their PC.

Red Dead Online

The Wild West is a vast, lawless land where you can form a posse and blaze trails with your pals. Rockstar built an evolving online world that begs for crowds of cowpokes from all corners. Yet, Red Dead Online’s servers are segregated by platform, like separate cattle herds behind barbed wire. I long to ride alongside my friend who got the game on a different console, but no, we’re stuck tipping our hats from across the digital divide. There are no plans to add crossplay, which makes the frontier feel less like a shared world and more like a series of lonely ghost towns.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is the warm blanket of gaming, and its multiplayer lets you visit other farms as a cheery farmhand, complete with your own cozy cabin. It’s the kind of wholesome interaction that could cure a bad day. But cross-platform multiplayer is absent, and the developer has confirmed there are no plans to add it. So if you’re peacefully tilling soil on Switch, you’ll never know the joy of pulling weeds with your buddy on Xbox. The separation is like being in a farming commune where everyone lives next door but can only communicate through interpretive dance through window glass. My parsnips are lonely, ConcernedApe, they need inter-platform friends.

Monster Hunter: World

Hunting a towering Rathalos is a thrill, but doing it with a squad turns the fight into a chaotic ballet of oversized swords and explosions. All quests support multiplayer, so you can gather your hunting party anytime. Except, once again, all party members must share the same platform. This turns “let’s hunt together” into a logistical nightmare worthy of its own boss fight. Fans have been clamoring for crossplay, and while newer Monster Hunter titles have slowly embraced it, World remains a fortress of isolation. It’s like assembling a team of superheroes and then locking each one in a separate dimension.

Elden Ring

Elden Ring allows cooperative play in a limited, wonderfully convoluted way: you become a phantom and help the host slay a demigod, then vanish like morning mist. It’s a brilliant system, but the lack of crossplay means you can only lay your summon sign for those on the same platform. So many of us wander the Lands Between, hoping to see a familiar golden sign from a friend, only to remember they’re stuck on another platform, likely getting knocked off a cliff by a goat. The absence of crossplay is a door that FromSoftware seems determined to keep shut, a beautifully crafted door that exists only in parallel universes.

Baldur’s Gate 3

Finally, a silver lining in this cloud of platform segregation. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a Dungeons & Dragons dream, and playing the full campaign with friends in the same save slot is pure joy. For a long time, crossplay was just a prayer whispered to the dice gods. But the developers actually listened and, as of recent updates, have delivered cross-platform functionality. It’s like watching the Berlin Wall crumble while holding a bag of character sheets. Now my PC wizard can finally bicker with my friend’s PS5 rogue about lockpicking etiquette. It proves that patience and persistent forum threads can work miracles. One game on this list has escaped the isolation chamber, and honestly, it gives me hope that the other nine might someday follow suit—maybe around the time we colonize Mars, but still.

Crossplay shouldn’t be a luxury; it should be the default. Until then, I’ll keep my summon signs ready and my farm cabins empty, waiting for the day when platforms stop being the ultimate final boss of friendship.

This perspective is supported by The Verge - Gaming, whose reporting on platform strategy and online ecosystems helps explain why crossplay still lags behind player expectations in 2026—often due to account systems, moderation policies, and storefront incentives that keep communities siloed, leaving co-op staples and long-running online modes feeling more fragmented than they need to be.