Bungie originally teased cross-play for Destiny 2 back in 2020, during the Beyond Light reveal showcase. It’s been a year since then, and today we’ve finally received some new details about how players will be able to play Destiny 2 with their friends on alternate platforms. In this guide, you’ll learn everything from Guardian’s Identity to Text chat on consoles, that we know about cross-play and features that will be coming later on in season 15 of Destiny 2.
When is Cross Play coming to Destiny 2?
Bungie will officially be launching Cross-Platform Play in Destiny 2 in early season 15 between PC (Steam), PlayStation, Xbox, and Google Stadia. This means that players on PlayStation consoles will be able to play with their Xbox or PC/Stadia friends.
Cross-Play Features and Release Window
In season 15, Bungie will be releasing other new features along with crossplay in Destiny 2. These features will be released over the span of season 15 leading up to The Witch Queen expansion. Let’s dig in!
Guardian’s Identity
First up, we have Guardian’s Identity. In simple terms, Bungie will be assigning a new name to your Guardian that will be the staple to whichever platform you play Destiny 2 on. This feature will be releasing in early season 15 of Destiny 2. Your Guardian’s Identity consists of:
- “Bungie Name”: PlayerName#1234
- “Display Name”: PlayerName (only the first part – without the numeric ID)
- “Hash”: #
- “Numeric ID”: 1234
With that being said, here’s how you’ll be able to assign your Guardian’s Identity once the cross-play goes live in Destiny 2:
- Sign in to the platform with the name you want to keep.
- Bungie will convert that platform’s ID to Bungie Name.
- That’s it.
Bungie has already confirmed that players will be able to change their Guardian’s name down the line in winter during season 15.
No More Hand Cannon, Sniper Rifles, in your IDs
With Guardian’s Identity, Bungie is also bringing a new feature that’ll allow them to filter any symbols or characters that are not available on the player search box on consoles. “This means some of the extended character sets we’ve supported for player names on Steam will no longer be able to be used,” said Gafner, Community Manager at Bungie. This is also released in early season 15.
Players who have these symbols/characters or offensive terms in their IDs may want to change their IDs right now because you won’t be able to change it up until late 2021 in winter. If you have a banned name in your ID, your ID will be changed to “Guardian.”
Cross-Play Friends
With the release of cross-play, Bungie is combining all of your current friends’ rosters and calling it Bungie Friends. With this, you’ll be able to add your PC/Xbox/Stadia friends from your PlayStation 4/5 consoles, and vice versa. To add players to your Bungie Friends list, there are three ways you could do this as described by Bungie:
- Log into Destiny 2 on a device where you want to turn platform friends into Bungie Friends, and then issue requests via our Roster screen.
- Search for your friends using the player search on the Invite screen.
- Use Bungie.net friends finder, where you can link all of your platforms, and then issue Bungie Friends requests to all your platform friends.
In-game Invites
Now, players will be able to invite any player from other platforms using their Guardian ID. For this, you would need to go to the Roster screen and click the mail icon on the left of the screen. This will bring up the “Invite” section.
On this screen, you’ll be able to see if you have any pending invites from other players, or if you want to invite new players to join your Fireteam. To do so, simply click on the search bar and type in their in-game ID. Great feature, Bungie!
On top of that, Bungie has also added a new screen for Fireteam Privacy, which you can find below:
Matchmaking Pools
There is a separate matchmaking pool for PvP players with cross play released in Destiny 2. This will allow console players to not matchmake with PC players inside Destiny 2’s PvP. The matchmaking pool for Destiny 2 PvP cross-play is:
- PC players will match with other PC players.
- Console players will match with other console players and Stadia players.
- Console Fireteams with any PC players will matchmaker in the PC pool.
As for the PvE, there is no matchmaking pool and all players (consoles and PC) will be matched together in the same instance.
Voice and Text Chat
Shortly after the launch of Cross Play in Destiny 2, Bungie will release the voice chat feature between platforms. Furthermore, Bungie will finally be adding text chat support for console players. With this, players on consoles will be able to use USB Keyboard to type in-game text to chat with their friends.
However, keep in mind that the keyboard will only work to type the text and you will not be able to control your character with the keyboard.
Release Windows
So, that’s pretty much it for Cross Play in Destiny 2. Here’s a recap of everything that’s coming with Cross Play and their respective release window in Destiny 2:
- Early Season 15
- Bungie Name and Bungie Friends
- Cross Platform Invites, Multiplayer, and Matchmaking
- Player Search and Social Privacy
- Soon after launch – Cross Platform Voice Chat
- Winter
- Bungie Name Changes
- Text Chat Display on Consoles
- Text Input Via USB Keyboards on Consoles
