Alright, so the other day, my buddies and I were all hyped up to jump into Red Dead Online. I’m on my PC, one friend’s got a PlayStation, and another is on Xbox. We figured, “Hey, it’s 2023 (or whenever I was doing this, feels like yesterday!), surely we can all posse up together, right?” That was the big question floating around: is Red Dead Online cross platform?
My Initial Attempts and Confusion
So, first thing I did, fired up the game on my PC. Got into a session, then tried to figure out how to invite my PlayStation buddy. Scrolled through the menus, you know, the player lists, the social club options. Couldn’t find his name anywhere. He was doing the same on his end, trying to find me. No dice.
We spent a good chunk of time just poking around. “Are you sure you spelled my Rockstar ID right?” “Are you online? Like, really online?” All the usual troubleshooting stuff you do when tech isn’t playing ball. It was getting a bit frustrating, ’cause we were all picturing ourselves riding across the plains, causing a ruckus.
Digging a Little Deeper
After about half an hour of scratching our heads, I decided to do a quick search. Didn’t go to any fancy official sites at first, just typed it into a search bar, “Red Dead Online play PC with PlayStation” or something like that. Started seeing a bunch of forum posts, Reddit threads, you know the drill. Lots of people asking the same exact question we were.
Here’s what I started piecing together from what other players were saying:
- PC players can only play with other PC players.
- PlayStation players (PS4 and PS5) can play together, but only with other PlayStation folks.
- Xbox players (Xbox One and Series X/S) can play together, but only within the Xbox ecosystem.
Basically, each platform is its own little island when it comes to Red Dead Online. There’s no bridge connecting PC to consoles, or even PlayStation to Xbox.
The Reality Hits
So, after all that, the answer was a pretty clear no. Red Dead Online does not support cross-platform play. It was a bit of a letdown, not gonna lie. We had all these grand plans, and they kinda fizzled out because we were all on different systems.
It’s a shame, really. A lot of newer games are built with cross-play from the ground up, but I guess Red Dead Online wasn’t one of them. Maybe it’s a technical hurdle, maybe it’s a decision by Rockstar, who knows? All I know is, if you and your friends are on different systems, you won’t be able to form a cross-platform posse in Red Dead Online.
We ended up just playing our own separate games that night. Still had fun, but it wasn’t the shared experience we were hoping for. So yeah, if you were wondering, like I was, that’s the deal with Red Dead Online and cross-platform play. You stick to your own kind, platform-wise!
