Using GameSpot’s 33 Best Cross-Platform Games in 2025 list as a lens, we look at how cross-play shooters and co-op hits like Apex Legends, Helldivers 2, FragPunk, and Split Fiction are reshaping communities, matchmaking, and design in 2025.
In 2025, it is harder to find a big multiplayer game that does not support cross-play than one that does. GameSpot’s “33 Best Cross-Platform Games In 2025” list reads like a snapshot of a new normal, where platform walls are finally starting to crumble.
Publishers still love hardware exclusivity and separate storefronts, but the biggest shooters and co-op hits are now built around one simple idea: your friends list matters more than your console. From Apex Legends to Helldivers 2, FragPunk, and co-op showpieces like Split Fiction, cross-play is no longer a novelty feature. It is the backbone of how communities form and survive.
Apex Legends: Cross-Play As Lifeline
Respawn’s battle royale was built for squads, but in its early years your choice of hardware quietly decided who you could actually squad up with. That changed when Apex Legends rolled out cross-play and began unifying lobbies across PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Switch.
In practice, cross-play solved two of Apex’s biggest long-term problems at once. First, it kept queues healthy for every mode, even limited-time events and less popular playlists. A mode that might have struggled to fill 60 players on a single console at off-peak hours can thrive when the game is drawing from a combined player pool.
Second, it made Apex social again for long-time players whose friend groups had drifted onto different platforms over the years. The GameSpot cross-platform list calls out this strength directly, positioning Apex alongside Fortnite and Call of Duty as the default answer when a mixed-platform party just wants to jump into a fast shooter without arguing over hardware.
Cross-play also nudged Respawn toward better account infrastructure. EA account linking, shared friends lists, and the push toward broader cross-progression are all in service of that central idea that your identity should follow you, whether you are dropping into World’s Edge on a PS5 or a gaming laptop.
Helldivers 2: Democracy Needs A Bigger Server
Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 exploded in 2024 partly because of its slapstick chaos and friendly fire, but its success in 2025 rests on something more structural. The sequel’s war is framed as a truly galactic conflict, and that fantasy depends on huge numbers of players pushing the same front lines at once.
That is where cross-play comes in. GameSpot’s list highlights Helldivers 2 as one of the most satisfying co-op and cross-platform shooters you can boot up today. PS5 and PC players drop into the same planetary operations, share the same stratagem unlocks, and contribute to the same shifting galactic map.
For Arrowhead, that shared war effort was not just a narrative hook. It was a design requirement. Splitting the community into isolated platform shards would have undermined the entire premise of a single, reactive front line. Instead, cross-play keeps queues fast for all difficulties, makes public matchmaking viable even for solo players, and ensures that time-limited operations feel truly global.
Helldivers 2 also illustrates one of cross-play’s quiet strengths in 2025: co-op games survive early technical growing pains only if the community sticks around. When that community is pooled across platforms, the odds of finding teammates for late-game objectives months after launch rise dramatically.
FragPunk And The New Wave Of Cross-Play Shooters
GameSpot’s 2025 cross-platform list also spotlights newer competitive shooters chasing the Apex and Valorant audience with their own twists on hero shooting and round-based tactics. FragPunk stands out in that crowd because of how aggressively it leans into cross-play as part of its pitch.
FragPunk is built on short, explosive rounds where wild card modifiers can completely rewrite the rules of a fight. Keeping those lobbies full is essential, and cross-platform matchmaking is how it stays viable outside of peak hours or specific regions. When GameSpot frames FragPunk as one of the shooters to watch on the cross-play front, it is really pointing to the broader trend where launch-day expectations now assume that a competitive online game will connect every major platform.
For smaller or newer shooters, cross-play is also a hedge against volatility. If the player base dips on one console after a balance patch or a new rival shooter drops, there is still a broader pool to maintain healthy matchmaking and reasonable skill brackets.
Split Fiction: Co-Op Storytelling Across Platforms
Hazelight’s Split Fiction appears twice on GameSpot’s list, once as an action adventure and once purely as a co-op highlight. That double listing is intentional. Like It Takes Two before it, Split Fiction is only playable in co-op, but it goes a step further in how it approaches accessibility with cross-play.
Full cross-platform support means that the game’s Friend Pass style system actually fits how people play in 2025. Only one player needs to own a copy, and both players can still experience the entire story whether they are on PlayStation, Xbox, or PC.
In narrative-driven co-op, the stakes around cross-play are different than in a live-service shooter. There is less focus on long-term retention curves and more on making sure every potential pair of friends can actually get through the story together. Cross-play here is less about ranked ladders and more about reliability. If a friend upgrades hardware or switches ecosystems entirely, the save file and the friendship do not have to.
Cross-Play In 2025: From Feature To Expectation
Zooming out from these individual games, GameSpot’s cross-platform roundup underlines a broader shift in expectations. Ten years ago, cross-play was a marketing bullet point for a handful of outliers. In 2025 it is increasingly the baseline.
Big shooters and service games are leading the way. Call of Duty’s latest releases, Fortnite, The Finals, Overwatch 2, and Destiny 2 all appear in the list, each offering some flavor of cross-play that ties together PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. Some go further to include Switch and mobile. Others carve out exceptions, like limiting cross-play in ranked modes or fencing off the Switch version due to performance and control differences.
Even genres that historically resisted cross-play are adapting. Fighting games like Mortal Kombat 1 and Tekken 8 now treat cross-play as essential for healthy matchmaking and strong competitive scenes. Sports titles are experimenting with partial cross-play between current-gen consoles. Co-op RPGs and MMOs such as Diablo IV and Final Fantasy XIV are steadily smoothing out platform barriers so raid groups and static parties can form regardless of hardware.
These examples all point to the same conclusion. Modern multiplayer design is deeply intertwined with cross-platform networking. Matchmaking algorithms, progression systems, seasonal content schedules, and even monetization models are now built around the assumption that everyone is sharing one giant player pool.
How Cross-Platform Support Shapes Communities
Cross-play’s impact in 2025 shows up most clearly in how communities behave.
First, friend groups are more resilient. When one person in a long-running group jumps from Xbox to PC, or from PlayStation to a handheld, the game does not have to lose them. Cross-play keeps Discord servers and group chats intact instead of fragmenting them by platform.
Second, niche modes and experimental playlists have room to breathe. Whether it is a limited-time Apex Legends mode, a high-difficulty Helldivers 2 operation, or an offbeat modifier playlist in FragPunk, cross-play lets developers test weird ideas without worrying that every new mode will split an already thin player base.
Third, cross-play subtly nudges studios toward stronger anti-cheat and better matchmaking controls. Many cross-play shooters now let console players disable matchmaking with PC if they are worried about mouse-and-keyboard advantages or cheating, balancing inclusivity with control. GameSpot’s list notes these options in several entries, reflecting a new norm where cross-play is configurable rather than all-or-nothing.
Finally, cross-play carries expectations for cross-progression. Players increasingly assume that their unlocks and cosmetics should carry over if they swap hardware. Not every game on the 2025 list gets this right, but the direction of travel is clear. Over time, it becomes harder for a cross-play title to justify keeping your inventory locked to a single box under the TV.
The Future: Cross-Play As Infrastructure
Looking ahead, the GameSpot list feels less like a final word on the best cross-platform games and more like a comfortingly incomplete snapshot. New titles like FragPunk are arriving with cross-play baked in from day one. Long-running games such as Apex Legends and Helldivers 2 are quietly proving that when you unify your community, you can support more modes, braver experiments, and longer tails.
The most important shift is psychological. For many players in 2025, “what are we playing tonight?” is no longer followed by “what are you playing on?” Cross-play has turned hardware into a preference instead of a boundary. That change reshapes how games are pitched, how communities grow, and how long our favorite worlds stay alive.
Whatever the next wave of shooters, co-op adventures, or party games looks like, they will be judged not just on gunfeel, story, or art style, but on whether everyone in the group chat can actually play together from day one.