Today, we are excited to announce a major step in the future of Gears of War 4 Versus Multiplayer with the introduction of cross-play between Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs in Social Quickplay!

Late last year, we conducted a cross-play Test Weekend to bring our Windows 10 and Xbox One fans together in public Versus Multiplayer, combining fan feedback and extensive data gathering to help us decide the next steps to take to deliver a matchmaking cross-play Versus experience.

Here’s a look at some of the top stats from our cross-play Test Weekend:

Over 750,000 Matches Played

Over 115,000 Unique Participants – 91/9 split from Xbox to Windows 10

Average of 6.2 matches played by Xbox users, with 11.2 for Windows 10 users

Over 90% of all matches during the weekend included a mix of Windows 10 and Xbox One players

Windows 10 and Xbox players had closely-matched results when comparing Average KD, Score and Kills per match based on skill ratings

The quality of matches improved for both Xbox and Windows 10 users – social lobbies had a higher average user count, and players completed 95% of all social matches entered vs 90% prior to Cross-play Weekend

When we looked at the extensive data we received thanks to the incredible participation from our community, there was a clear message – it works. And after reading the hundreds of pages of discussion and feedback from the cross-play Test Weekend, our fans said the same – it works.

As such, beginning today, Social Quickplay will now be a Cross-play playlist! This step is planned to be a permanent move for the future of Social Quickplay, with the first few months being a ‘trial period’ in order to monitor player feedback alongside data to ensure the Test Weekend was representative.

Core and Competitive will remain platform independent, only matching Xbox players with each other and Windows 10 players with each other. Despite the closely matched performance between users on both platforms seen in our cross-play Test Weekend, we always want to ensure our Ranked experiences are as closely matched and competitive as possible. Due to the major popularity of Social Quickplay on Windows 10, we will be looking at introducing new Core and Competitive solutions for Windows 10 players in the future to provide more focused offerings to experience the more competitive ranked play of Gears of War 4.

We are incredibly excited to bring our Xbox One and Windows 10 PC communities closer together in Public Versus multiplayer through the power of Xbox Live. Thank you for your participation, feedback and passion – without our incredible fans, this decision would not have been possible. Whichever platform you play Gears of War 4 on, we’ll see you online in Social Quickplay!