NetherRealm Is Looking into Cross-Play for Mortal Kombat 11

[HeavyNorse]

https://wccftech.com/netherrealm-looking-crossplay-mk11/

During the recent Mortal Kombat 11 press event in London, our on-site reporter Callum Agnew was able to play the game as well as briefly chat with Game Designer Derek Kirtzic from NetherRealm Studios.

At our behest, Callum queried him regarding the chances of cross-play making it into the game now that more titles are enabling it. While they aren’t discussing any details for now, it is something they are looking into and hope to do at some point. Cross-play isn’t likely to be enabled at the game’s launch on April 23rd, then, but it may well be released later.

In fact, given that Mortal Kombat 11 is going to be powered by Unreal Engine 4 (unlike previous NetherRealm titles, which ran on Unreal Engine 3), it’s easy to imagine the developers taking advantage of Epic’s scheduled cross-play features rollout throughout 2019.

• Cross-Platform Login, Friends, Presence, Profile, and Entitlements (coming Q2-Q3 2019 to PC, other platforms throughout 2019): Provides the core functionality for persistently recognizing players across multiple sessions and devices; identifying friends; and managing free and paid item entitlements. This will support all 7 major platforms (PC, Mac, iOS, Android, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) to the full extent each platform allows per-title.
• PC/Mac Overlay API (coming Q3 2019): Provides a user interface for login, friends, and other features in a game-agnostic, engine-agnostic way.
• Cross-Platform Voice Comms (coming Q3 2019 to all platforms): Epic is building a new in-game voice communications service supporting all platforms, all stores, and all engines, which will be available for free. (For developers needing an immediately-available voice solution, check out Discord, Vivox, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, and Mumble.)
• Cross-Platform Parties and Matchmaking (coming Q3-4 2019 to all platforms)
• Cross-Platform Data Storage, Cloud-Saved Games (coming Q2 2019)
• Cross-Platform Achievements and Trophies (coming Q3 2019)

These features should help game developers as they activate cross-play in their games. Here at Wccftech, we’ve been hoping it would become a standard feature for quite some time and it’s exciting to see that dream slowly coming into realization.

*Promoted by HellblazerHawkman

 

[xenogorgeous]

crossplay it's always welcome .... only Sony thinks other way around with their restrictive policy regarding online match play .... so ....

 

[Slymind]

Since sony are being jerks about It, i hope Microsoft embraces It, It would benifit both Xbox and PC crowd tremendously.

 

[KingKhrystopher]

Sony's the one being weird about it. They let Fortnite do it though, and before that Paragon had it. Both are from Epic Games, but still. I know Smite was trying to get crossplay for PC, Xbox, Switch, and PS4, but only Sony said no, so the first three will get crossplay.

 

[SaSSolino]

There is no reason not to have crossplatform matchmaking at this time, outside of big companies being dicks about it. Let's hope they make it happen!

 

[Jynks]

cross platform is limited by Sony. Xbox and PC is cross platform by default as long as the devs make it so.. but Sony is the bottle neck. Android of coarse works on anything and connects to anything that allows it... so it works on xbox and pc... I do not know anything about apple, except they are expensive and really restrictive.

 

[JBeezYBabY]

I mean, they did it for Capcom with SFV which is the ONLY fighting game franchise that has been around as long as MK. Soooo i dont see they should not make this game cross platform play.

 

[villainous monk]

I'm looking forward to a definite yes or no in the future concerning this. I'll hold out hope in the meantime but Sony has a record of not putting out and playing nice.

Really really happy it's on UE4 though. It's far more powerful and streamlined then UE3.

NRS really does try to go balls out when it comes to visuals utilizing their resources to their full potential.

 

[HeavyNorse]

outside of big companies being dicks about it.

*cough*Sony*cough*

Oh, sorry, I had a frog in my throat.

I said SONY!!!

 

[MKF30]

Yeah, I remember reading that Sony was stubborn with this idea and had to take some convincing. But anyway hope this happens would be so good for MK and competition in general for everyone.

 

[DDustiNN]

Sony's the one being weird about it. They let Fortnite do it though, and before that Paragon had it. Both are from Epic Games, but still. I know Smite was trying to get crossplay for PC, Xbox, Switch, and PS4, but only Sony said no, so the first three will get crossplay.

Yeah that’s weird to me. Street Fighter V and Rocket League both had cross-play between PS4 & PC back when I played them.

 

[Thracian_Priest]

Cross-play between the consoles and PC will not be possible. At least not at the beginning. The PC version is developed by another studio. According to the interview with Paulo, all PC updates will come with delay - days, maybe even weeks. (Same as MKX, unfortunately.) In order to make cross-play work, all versions of the game have to be the same.

Actually, cross-play might be possible after all DLC and updates are available on all platforms and NRS focuses on Inj3. But it would be too late IMO.

 

[theotherguy]

Derek's comment did seem a little odd. Either it's happening and they can't say anything yet, or they're working on it and can't say anything yet as they don't know if it's going to play out.

And given the info above about Epic working on Crossplay, the timing of the game and the comment... it all seems very coincidental.

Might be like the rollback netcode in MKX, a major update late in the life of the game to add it in.

 

[Rearawt]

Cross-play between the consoles and PC will not be possible. At least not at the beginning. The PC version is developed by another studio. According to the interview with Paulo, all PC updates will come with delay - days, maybe even weeks. (Same as MKX, unfortunately.) In order to make cross-play work, all versions of the game have to be the same.

Actually, cross-play might be possible after all DLC and updates are available on all platforms and NRS focuses on Inj3. But it would be too late IMO.

The Gamecrate interview with Paulo doesn't mention anything about the PC version. Where did you get that?

 

[Thracian_Priest]

There is more than one interview. I was referring to the PC Gamer one:

Garcia can't make any promises about PC-specific Mortal Kombat 11 features such as ultrawide monitor support or tell us how it'll perform on current hardware—the work is still ongoing. And there's no guarantee that every patch or DLC pack for Mortal Kombat 11 will arrive the same day, or even the same week, it does on consoles, but Garcia is confident they'll get close and they'll stay close.

 

[Rearawt]

There is more than one interview. I was referring to the PC Gamer one:

Garcia can't make any promises about PC-specific Mortal Kombat 11 features such as ultrawide monitor support or tell us how it'll perform on current hardware—the work is still ongoing. And there's no guarantee that every patch or DLC pack for Mortal Kombat 11 will arrive the same day, or even the same week, it does on consoles, but Garcia is confident they'll get close and they'll stay close.

QLOC – the same port house which fixed the previous game for the XL release and brought out the solid PC edition of Injustice 2. I2 often enjoyed patches on the same day as the console editions, which is perhaps the sharpest contrast against how the previous releases were handled.

I'm not worried tbh, saying that's the same as MKX is a stretch

 

[ShepherdOfFire]

Sony opened the crossplay for Fortnite if I'm not wrong. There is also Rocket League devs who said that the crossplay was ready to be implemented into the game but they are waiting for Sony's approval. I think we will have the crossplay feature but probably near the end of the year.