Is No Man's Sky Crossplay?
So, No Man’s Sky really is crossplay — and at this point, it’s not just a gimmick or an afterthought. If someone’s hyping up their base on PlayStation, another person cruising on Xbox, and yet another lost explorer on PC, yes, you all can jump in the same universe, fly goofy ships together, and take sunset group photos on some toxic planet. I still remember in 2023 when Ryan (he’s a die-hard PS5 guy, so proud of his HDR settings), Ash (on her ancient Xbox One that loads planets like it’s running on potato batteries), and I — on Steam — all somehow ended up building intergalactic mushroom farms in the same system. The crossplay just worked. A little clumsy at first (those friend codes are weird), but once we were in, it was nothing but chaotic, joyful base construction.
There’s always the classic “wait, is Switch included?” confusion. Sadly, Switch folks can see the same galaxies, name wild-eyed wormbeasts, and send discovery pings, but they can’t drop into full-on multiplayer lobbies with the rest of us. For now, it’s more of a parallel solo ride over there. I get why — the Switch version dropped in late 2022 and felt like it was training wheels compared to the big-kid consoles. You can shout your achievements across the network, but you won’t actually high-five your friends in person unless Hello Games works some future miracle.
But — and it’s a big but — crossplay feels like it actually brings the community together. Most nights in 2025, I see platform icons floating over people in the Anomaly (that’s the trippy multiplayer space station everyone can summon). PS4 flying saucers, Xbox sentinels, spiraling Mac starcruisers, even now a few VR bubbleheads zooming past. Every so often, a new player asks, “Do PC folks play differently than console?” Honestly, the only difference is the truly outlandish base-building skills some mouse-and-keyboard types wield. And maybe console folks talk more about controller battery woes. Nothing huge.
The process to play cross-platform is so easy, it’s almost boring. You tweak the Network settings, flip multiplayer on, and swap quirky No Man’s Sky friend codes. Some days, I think Hello Games missed a trick not letting us just shout, “Beam me up!” and pop into any universe. But hey, the codes get you there just fine. It’s usually smoother than most AAA multiplayer logins, actually — except for that one time Ash added the wrong code and the game matched us with two random French explorers who insisted our base needed way more inflatable hamsters. Conversation starter, though.
A quick, informal cheat sheet: If you’re on PC, PlayStation, or Xbox, crossplay is full-throttle. Up to four in a party for regular exploration, combat, and goofing off. The Nexus hub area handles up to 32 players on PC, 16 on consoles, but honestly, it just ends up as a party of randoms showing off bizarre starships and rainbow-colored exosuits. You can build together, trade, do missions — the whole nine yards. Mac’s in the mix, too, and with recent updates, it’s gotten just as seamless for Apple folks. Switch? Well, For now, you’re the lone wolf in the pack—at least for direct multiplayer.
Cross-save is a trickier beast. From 2024 on, you can start a game on Xbox, save your progress to the cloud, and pick it up on PC—assuming you’re using the same account and jump through just a tiny bit of cloud-syncing hoops. I haven’t tried it because I’m fiercely attached to my PC, but a friend swears by it: he switches between his fancy office rig and his beat-up living room PlayStation and never misses a farming cycle. Nintendo Switch, again... the rumors say it might happen someday, but it’s not the reality. For now, Mac, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC are where cross-save actually happens.
