With the release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, a lot of console players are keen to detach themselves from crossplay multiplayer, hoping to keep the game more balanced and competitive, as well as avoiding any potential impact from hackers on PC.
The good news is that you can turn crossplay off quite easily on the PS5 and PS4 versions of the game with an in-game setting. There’s no equivalent setting within Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Series X|SÂ and Xbox One, and this has some sites reporting that it’s not possible, but there is actually a way to block crossplay through the Xbox System Settings, with a universal toggle that will then restrict you to matchmaking within Xbox Live across all games.
Here’s the step-by-step guide for both PS5 and Xbox.
Turn off Modern Warfare 2 crossplay on PS5
- From the Modern Warfare 2 main menu, press Option and navigate to the Settings cog icon.
- Navigate to Account & Network, the lowest tab on the left of the screen.
- Under Online, set Crossplay to Off
How to block Modern Warfare 2 crossplay on Xbox
- Open the Settings app from either the top right corner of the Dashboard or the Guide menu.
- Under General open Online safety & family – this will require your account password.
- Select Privacy & online safety > Xbox Privacy > View details & Customise > Communications & multiplayer.
- Set You can join cross-network play to Block
Note that turning off crossplay on Xbox is a universal setting that affects all games played on that account. This can impact matchmaking as you are restricted to a smaller pool of players.
Crossplay is a sometimes controversial feature in multiplayer games. Depending on the genre, it’s either welcomed with open arms or met with dismay and vitriol by the player base. The deciding factor is typically whether there’s a perceived advantage to playing with keyboard and mouse over gamepad – whether or not this is actually the case is up for debate, when auto-aim is taken into account – and whether there’s competitive multiplayer at the game’s core. Popular multiplayer games can also end up the target of hackers, which typically play on PC.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the soon-to-be-released Warzone 2.0 are both prime targets for high-skill player disparity and hacking on PC, so gamers naturally want to try and protect themselves for a more enjoyable game experience.
That won’t stop people complaining about skill-based matchmaking, though.
