Back in June, Respawn Entertainment announced that the free-to-play battle royale game Apex Legends will feature cross-platform play on PlayStation 4, XBox One, and Windows PC. 

Last week, the cross-play feature finally opened up for beta testing.

If you're a fan of the game and want to know what this may mean for you, here's all the details.

Get revved up for the Aftermarket Collection Event. Take part in the cross-play beta, dive into the new “Flashpoint” LTM, take on challenges to earn exclusive rewards, and more! It’s going to be a hell of a ride!

Speed off into the Aftermarket Collection Event starting Oct 6. pic.twitter.com/iwEDkX1i9U

— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) October 1, 2020

The Good

Cross-platform play essentially means you will be able to enjoy the game on any platform, regardless if you’re on the PS4, XBox One, Nintendo Switch, Steam, or Origin.

You can finally duke it out with your friends even if you’re on different sides of the console wars. This also means there will be a significant boost to the overall size of the player base. 

To add friends, open the Friends menu and pick Find Friend, then search for them by name.

This makes for both better matchmaking and higher replay value.

The Bad

While you now have the freedom to play on any console, not all platforms perform equally.

In matchmaking, PC players will only be matched with PC players and vice versa for console players. If you’re a console player who wants to play with PC players, you have to be in a party together before the matchmaking process.

The Ugly

Here’s where it gets worse. Once you start playing on your console of choice, you’d better make sure it’s going to be your permanent console, because intergenerational progression is not a thing.

This means that you can’t port your character from one system to another. You also can't loot share or continue from a save point on a different console. 

Cross-console compatibility is definitely not fully fleshed out just yet, but hopefully Respawn does something about it after beta testing finishes. 

You can also disable cross-play in the settings menu, but you might have to endure longer wait times while the game searches for players in the search pool.

For now, this is a great way to get a feel for how cross-platform play will work in Apex Legends going forward.