The Overwatch Cross-Play Beta is now live. First announced earlier this month, the Cross-Play Beta allows console players to opt-in to the Cross-Play feature. It's entirely optional, and those who want to play with other players from just the same platform may continue doing so.

Overwatch‘s Cross-Play will only be affecting Casual formats. Competitive modes will remain to be played among players from the same platform. This keeps the competitive environment on a level playing field.

With the release of Overwatch‘s Cross-Play Beta feature, players can now claim their free Golden Loot Box. While you have until the end of 2021 to claim the Golden Loot Box, it's a great way for Blizzard to encourage players to try out the Cross-Play Beta feature this early. To add to that, the Golden Loot Box can be claimed once for each platform you own Overwatch in. That's a great way to start any play session, so it might even incentivize you to get a fresh new copy of Overwatch on other platforms.

To opt-in to Overwatch‘s Cross-Play Beta, you can simply follow these instructions:

  1. Launch the game on your system.
  2. Press the confirmation button to progress through the Overwatch welcome screen.
  3. You will be presented with an alpha-numeric code and a QR code.
    1. The alpha-numeric code can be entered at blizzard.com/link.
    2. The QR code may be scanned with a mobile app to take you to the linking webpage, which will be pre-populated with the code provided in-game.
  4. Log in with your Battle.net account credentials to finalize the connection between your console game and Battle.net accounts.
  5. You will receive a message in-game that notifies that your account is now successfully connected.

Do note that you'll need to have a Battle.net account for these steps.