Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard said earlier in the summer that the studio would love to have cross-platform play in Fallout 76, but "Sony isn't being as helpful as we want them to be" in making it happen. Today, Sony dropped a surprise announcement that it will allow Fortnite cross-play between the PS4 and other consoles. Could Fallout 76 also be a beneficiary of Sony's new spirit of openness and cooperation?

Sorry, no.

Folks, chill. I work with a lot of devs and games for whom this is important going forward. Fallout 76 does not support crossplay, for a number of reasons. I have no idea if it ever will. But I assure you it is not on our radar right now as we focus on B.E.T.A. and Launch.September 26, 2018

Hines has previously been somewhat blasé about Fallout 76 cross-play, telling Eurogamer in August that "it it would be nice if I could play on my Xbox and my kid is playing on his PC and we can play together, but if we can't, OK." Interestingly, he's taken a much firmer stance about having cross-play in The Elder Scrolls: Legends, saying at E3 that it's "essentially non-negotiable."

"We can't be talking about one version of Legends, where you take your progress with you, and another version where you stay within that ecosystem or its walled off from everything else," he said. "That is counter to what the game has been about."

Fallout 76 comes out on November 14. Preordering the game will get you into the beta (or B.E.T.A., for Break It Early Test Application, but I'm going to ignore that) which is set to take place in October.