The next game in the massive Call of Duty franchise, a reboot of the Modern Warfare series, launches in just over a month, in line with Activision’s annual release model. Yet new to this Call of Duty entry is cross-play multiplayer, so you can squad up with your friends across systems. Now, the developers at studio Infinity Ward have detailed how exactly cross-play will work in advance of an open beta that will support the feature kicking off this weekend.

Cross-play in Modern Warfare sounds a lot like how it works in Epic’s battle royale shooter Fortnite, which has become the industry gold standard. Infinity Ward says that Modern Warfare supports keyboard and mouse and controllers on all platforms, and you’ll be able to choose controller-only lobbies or mouse and keyboard-only lobbies regardless of whether you’re playing on a console or on PC. (And, if you’re so bold, you’ll apparently be able to jump into a lobby with no control scheme filters, so controller players can test their skills against PC mouse and keyboard users.)

No matter what scheme you pick, Infinity Ward says you can access cross-play across every multiplayer mode in Modern Warfare. The studio does note that it currently has “no plans” to support cross-play for ranked or tournament play, where an even playing field is more crucial. Fortnite is similar, in that Epic requires players who do want to use a gamepad in tournaments do so by plugging it into a PC.

To participate in cross-play, though, players will need to sign up for a COD Account through Activision. But once you have one, you can use it to make a cross-platform friends list and organize your squads across console and PC.

The cross-play beta starts on Thursday, September 19th at 1PM ET, and it should be available for PC and Xbox One players who have pre-ordered the game. Due to Activision’s longstanding deal with Sony for exclusive content, all PS4 players will be able to access the beta whether they’ve preordered the game or not. The beta is expected to open to all players on all platforms on Friday, September 20th at 9PM ET and will run until Monday at 1PM ET.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/18/20873038/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-cross-play-beta-how-it-works-ps4-xbox-one-pc