Randy Pitchford, president and CEO of Gearbox Software, developer of Borderlands, announced that the next patch will support cross-play "on all platforms." However, not all platforms will be supported.

Giving a glimpse of corporate shenanigans that sometimes stop nice things for no good reason, Pitchford continued, "Due to certification, the publisher has requested that we remove cross-play support for PlayStation consoles."

Now, people are upset with Sony over this. However, the publisher of Borderlands 3 is 2K Games, and Pitchford stated that it was removed at the publisher's request, not Sony's. The reason why is that Sony wants a share of the successful cross-play titles and believes it is justified in order to "offset the decline in revenue." This policy itself only emerged in 2019 after the company refused to embrace the idea at all for many years.

The recent Apple v. Epic trial provided some insight into how this works, with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney explaining that "under certain circumstances, Epic has to pay Sony additional revenue. He explained that "if someone was playing primarily on PlayStation but paying on an iPhone, this could trigger compensation. "Epic has agreed to pay Sony extra for Fortnite crossplay. Obviously, 2K does not think it is worth it.

Unless Sony (or 2K) suddenly changes its position, this situation will continue. This is probably also why Randy Pitchford is going public with this situation. The more developers and publishers who refuse to work with Sony and publicly embarrass Sony, the more likely the situation will change.

As for the future of "Borderlands" itself, Pitchford recently jumped in on the UE5 technology showcase and hinted at the future of the series. Easier said than done, of course.