Bethesda Hints At Elder Scrolls: Legends PS4 Boycott Over Sony Cross-Play Ban

Bethesda has its arm pulled back and is about to throat punch Sony over cross-play. Sony is the lone roadblock standing in the way of gamers everywhere playing together no matter what system they are running. In a more recent announcement, Bethesda's Fallout 76 won't have cross-play thanks to Sony.

Bethesda's other upcoming game is The Elder Scrolls: Legends and word is that the company has decided to not launch the game on systems that won’t support cross-play. Bethesda's Senior VP of global marketing and communications said at Quakecon that The Elder Scrolls: Legends is a strategy card game that supports both single and multiplayer along with cross-play, and it supports cross-platform progress as well.

Hines stated specifically that Bethesda's intention is for the game to land on a system, it must support cross-play. Hines said, "We cannot have a game that works one way across everywhere else except for on this one thing." Hines also noted that Bethesda is talking with its platform partners and went so far as to say that the cross-play support is "essentially non-negotiable."

Hines and Bethesda are stopping short of calling out Sony for its blocking of cross-play, but everyone knows the finger is pointed directly at the PS4. Sony has been called out for its stance on blocking cross-play many times, former Sony Online Entertainment CEO John Smedley has stated plainly the reason for the block. According to Smedley, Sony doesn’t want people to buy PS4 software and have that content used on an Xbox One or other competing consoles.

"I'm just telling you that's our stance. That is our intent. And that is our message," Hines added. "Not specific to anyone in particular, but to everyone we are talking about. This is 100 percent clear. This is what we are doing, what we need, and what we intend."

It's hard to see Sony budging on that stance for a game like The Elder Scrolls: Legends. Many gamers won’t miss a digital card game if it doesn’t land on the PS4. If this fight was over Fallout 76 not coming to the PS4 at all, the results might be a bit different as PS4 gamers would riot.