While you might have already enjoyed some Gears of War 4 crossplay for cooperative modes or for competitive modes in private matches, so far matchmaking disabled crossplay between PC and Xbox One in public competitive multiplayer.

　　That might change soon. The Coalition announced that starting this Friday, there will be a special Gears of War 4 crossplay test weekend to evaluate the potential of allowing PC and Xbox One gamers to play together in public Versus mode on a permanent basis.

　　Crossplay is divisive in any Versus experience, and Gears of War 4 is no different. From the beginning, we stated our intention to keep both platforms separate in non-cooperative game modes in order to preserve competitive balance. Conserving a fair, competitive environment remains a top priority for us.

　　The purpose of this weekend is to give Crossplay a trial run in a public playlist. We care deeply about players on both platforms and we’ve heard you, so our goal is to use this event to bring in a ton of data and listen to feedback from players on both platforms to examine the results.

　　What comes next after this hasn’t been decided – this weekend is an incredibly important first step in this process. Once we use the combination of our data and your feedback together, we’ll be able to make an informed next step (or not as the case may be). The key thing we want to stress is that we won’t be making any surprise changes all of a sudden based on this weekend.

　　We need as many of you to participate as possible to make this a truly effective test. As a thank you for participating, we’ve increased the win / loss XP for match completion and allow squads of up to 5 players into this Social style playlist. Some of you may play this weekend and never match with another PC gamer. Others will. Regardless, we’d truly appreciate your feedback.

　　The settings for this test are as follows:

　　Playlist Settings

　　PC and Xbox players can matchmake together in this special Versus Playlist from Friday December 2nd - Monday December 5th.

　　Playlist Type: Social

　　Modes: Team Deathmatch, Dodgeball, King of the Hill

　　Maps: All (including Checkout and Dry Dock)

　　Win XP: 1500 (up from 600)

　　Loss XP: 750 (up from 100)

　　Maximum Squad Size: 5

　　Gears of War 4 launched on October 11th to positive reviews, including our own. Rosh Kelly rated the game 9/10:

　　With an interesting, albeit familiar narrative, great gameplay and some really brutal battles, Gears of War 4 offers exactly what fans of the series have been yearning for: hours upon hours of great, weighty combat.