Blizzard has announced in its recent Overwatch 2 patch notes that crossplay aim assist between console and PC players is coming back and that it will be enabled in all match types except for competitive matches.
Previously, Blizzard had aim-assist in Overwatch 2 disabled only for console players, and that’s only when playing against PC players in crossplay matches. The gesture has put console players at a serious disadvantage, and many players had been unable to have fun with friends who were using PCs, not to mention the latter already having an edge because of using a mouse and keyboard, which give an obvious competitive advantage in any first-person shooter game.
The issue of cross-play with Overwatch is more complicated than what the term actually implies, though it’s not that clear and is only subtly mentioned in Blizzard’s dedicated FAQ. Console players are not free to play against PC players unless they team up with other PC users and get shoved into the PC matchmaking pool. Console aim-assist had also been disabled by default even if you were to group up with a PC player, so having a friend on PC does not actually work in your favor by any means. Moreover, PC players have still been able to play with other PC players regardless of their input method, so all of Blizzard’s decisions had not necessarily been encouraging fair play across platforms.
Another interesting tidbit in the FAQ is that queue times become better when disabling crossplay and playing only with those who own the same console, even though having a bigger play pool should logically reduce waiting times and is the point of implementing the crossplay feature in general. Weirdly enough, Game Director Aaron Keller had revealed in last year’s crossplay developer update that even though console players could disable crossplay (and were encouraged to do so because of queue times), PC players cannot do that, though he has not elaborated on the reason why.