Is Borderlands 4 crossplay? Platforms and co-op, explained

Borderlands 4 has full crossplay, and it shipped with the game rather than arriving in a later patch. PC on Steam and Epic, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 all play in the same co-op sessions, up to four players at once.

The one thing that ties it together is a SHiFT account, Gearbox's free cross-platform login. Link it to your platform and you can invite or join friends on any of the other four systems.

So the short version: Borderlands 4 is cross-platform out of the box, across every system it launched on. The catch that trips people up is cross-save, which is a separate feature and not live yet. We'll cover that below.

Which platforms play together

Every version of Borderlands 4 shares one crossplay pool through SHiFT. Here's how it breaks down system by system.

That's the whole matrix, and it's a clean one. A Steam player, a PS5 player, an Xbox Series X|S player, and a Nintendo Switch 2 player can share the same four-person run. The previous game took two updates to get there, as our Borderlands 3 crossplay guide explains.

One difference worth flagging: PS5 and Xbox Series X|S support local split-screen, and Switch 2 does not. Split-screen is a same-console feature, so it doesn't change who you can crossplay with online.

Crossplay and cross-progression are not the same thing

We get this question constantly, so here's the split we give people. Crossplay is who you can play with; cross-progression, or cross-save, is whether your character and progress follow you from one platform to another.

Borderlands 4 has the first and not yet the second. Crossplay works today. Cross-save does not exist at launch, which was October 2025.

It is officially planned, though. 2K's 2026 roadmap lists cross-save progression as a highly requested feature still in development, with no release date attached. If a guide tells you your save already transfers between PC and console, that's wrong for now.

The roadmap pairs it with a related shared account progression feature, meant to carry things like map progress, Fast Travel unlocks, SDU tokens, Vault Fragments, and Glide Pack upgrades between your characters. Gearbox creative director Graeme Timmins said the studio is "committed to having that feature out to the community," but that it needs a lot of moving parts in place first.

Until it ships, treat your progress as tied to the platform you play on. Your friends list and matchmaking cross over through SHiFT; your save file does not.

What you need to play together

Crossplay runs on a SHiFT account, so that's the one setup step. SHiFT is free, and you'll want it linked before you try to squad up across platforms.

Link a SHiFT account to whichever platform account you use, whether that's Steam, Epic, PSN, Xbox Live, or your Nintendo Account. A SHiFT account is required for any online multiplayer in Borderlands 4, cross-platform or not, so most players link it the first time they go online anyway. For more loot-driven guns on Sony's console, browse the best PS5 shooters.

Once it's linked, invite or join friends straight from the in-game social and lobby menu. You'll find them through your SHiFT-linked friends list or by their crossplay display name, and their platform doesn't matter.

Can you turn Borderlands 4 crossplay off?

There's no documented way to fully switch crossplay off once your SHiFT account is linked. It's the default path for online co-op, and the official sources we checked don't describe a granular opt-out toggle.

We'd treat a hard off switch as unconfirmed rather than assume one exists. If avoiding other platforms matters to you, the honest answer today is that Borderlands 4 doesn't hand you that control.

Does Borderlands 4 have cross-platform voice chat?

This one isn't officially documented. The 2K FAQ, the 2026 roadmap, and the Borderlands support material we reviewed don't spell out in-game voice chat or how it behaves across platforms.

Rather than guess, we'd plan around it: use Discord, Xbox party chat, or PlayStation party chat to talk during a cross-platform session. Destiny 2 does document its cross-platform voice, and our guide on Destiny 2's crossplay covers it. Those work regardless of what the in-game feature does.