Crossplay in Dead by Daylight has been live since 13 August 2020, it is on by default, and the standard community answer — "DBD has full crossplay, it doesn't matter what you own it on" — is right about 95% of the time.
The other 5% is why your friend on Nintendo Switch cannot see you in a lobby this week. Almost nothing written about Dead by Daylight crossplay explains it, because the cause sits in a support document that does not mention crossplay in its title.
Everything below is checked against Behaviour Interactive's own support articles and Steam announcements on 13 October 2026, with the live build at Patch 10.2.0 (released 6 October 2026).
Quick answer: does Dead by Daylight have crossplay?
- Yes. Crossplay is enabled by default across eight platforms and lets PC and console players queue into the same trials.
- Supported: Steam, Microsoft Store (PC), Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S and X, Nintendo Switch.
- Not supported: Dead by Daylight Mobile, which was a separate product and shut down on 20 March 2025. There is no mobile crossplay to ask about any more.
- Crossplay requires every platform to be on the same game version. A platform running an older build matches only with itself.
- That rule now bites regularly: since 18 September 2025, Behaviour has shipped Release Updates to Switch roughly two days later than everywhere else, and one bugfix patch up to a week later. During those windows Switch players are locked out of crossplay entirely.
- You can turn crossplay off from the main menu Settings — but not from inside a lobby, and the queue cost is much worse than it sounds.
- The Denuvo Anti-Cheat Trial running on Steam does not split the player pool. Behaviour said so in writing.
- Crossplay is not cross-progression. Playing together and carrying your unlocks between platforms are two separate systems with two separate requirements.
Which platforms are included in Dead by Daylight crossplay?
Behaviour's current support article lists eight platforms, and nothing else:
| Platform | Crossplay | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| PC — Steam | Yes | Also the only platform running the Denuvo Anti-Cheat Trial |
| PC — Microsoft Store | Yes | Shares the PC pool with Steam and Epic |
| PC — Epic Games Store | Yes | Behaviour's support site is currently flagging frequent Epic launcher crashes |
| PlayStation 4 | Yes | Plays with PS5 and everything else |
| PlayStation 5 | Yes | |
| Xbox One | Yes | Plays with the Series consoles and everything else |
| Xbox Series S and X | Yes | |
| Nintendo Switch | Yes, with a timing caveat | See the version-mismatch section below |
| Dead by Daylight Mobile | No longer applicable | Service ended 20 March 2025 |
Two details most crossplay pages still get wrong.
The console generations are not separated. PS4 and PS5 are listed as individual platforms, as are Xbox One and Xbox Series S and X, and all four sit in the same pool. A PS4 player and a Series X player share lobbies without doing anything.
The PC storefronts are not separated either. Steam, Epic and the Microsoft Store are three entries on one list, so where you bought the game affects the price you paid and nothing else. As one player put it in a r/deadbydaylight thread on exactly this question: "DBD has full crossplay so Steam and Xbox will both be able to play together. Console stores like to pad the price a little more than Steam does."
One source conflict worth flagging. Behaviour's older forum knowledge-base copy of the Cross-Play FAQ still lists Stadia. Google shut Stadia down in January 2023 and the current support-site article has dropped it; where the two disagree, the support site is the live document.
Does crossplay work between PS4, PS5, Xbox, PC and Switch?
Yes — every supported platform matches with every other supported platform, on one condition: all of them have to be running the same build of the game.
Behaviour's support article on the subject is one sentence long and is the most useful line in the entire crossplay FAQ:
"To be able to cross-play together, all platforms need to be running the same version of the game. If one platform gets the update later, players on that platform will only match with others on the same platform until they are able to update to the latest version of Dead by Daylight."
Historically that was a footnote: a patch landed everywhere within hours and nobody noticed. That changed in 2025.
Why can't I play with my friend on Nintendo Switch?
Because of a release-schedule change Behaviour announced on 18 September 2025, in a support article titled "FAQ for Nintendo Switch Release Time Changes" — a document nobody searching for crossplay will ever land on.
The two numbers that matter, verbatim from that FAQ:
- "Switch will get the Release Update approximately two days after other platforms."
- "For Switch only, the content of Bugfix Patch 1 will be rolled into Bugfix Patch 2 and will follow approximately one week after its release on all other platforms."
Behaviour's stated reason, quoted in full: "We have updated our release scheduled for the Nintendo Switch due to changes in the platform certification process that are beyond our control. Whilst we endeavor to work within the new timeframes, there will be periods where players will be on a different version of the game."
And then the line that connects it to crossplay, which the same FAQ answers directly under the heading "Will this affect Cross-play?":
"During times that Nintendo Switch is on a different game version, players on Nintendo Switch will be unable to play with friends or other players on other platforms."
That is the whole answer: not a setting you mis-toggled, not a bug, not a region problem. Combine the two documents and the practical rule for 2026 is:
- After every Release Update, expect a window of roughly two days where Switch is isolated. Patch 10.2.0 went live on other platforms on 6 October 2026, which under Behaviour's own stated timeline put Switch's window in the days immediately after.
- After Bugfix Patch 2 in a cycle, expect a longer window — Behaviour's own figure is up to about a week.
- During those windows, nothing on your end fixes it. The Switch player cannot opt into the old build and you cannot opt into theirs.
Three follow-ups from the same FAQ:
- Cross-progression is unaffected. Behaviour states it "will remain unchanged" during these delays, so a Switch player keeps their synced inventory even while they cannot match with you.
- Switch players are compensated for the Rift delay, "in the way of Rift Fragments to unlock the initial Tiers of the Rift."
- There is no Nintendo Switch 2 version. Behaviour: "There are no plans at the present time to make an upgraded Nintendo Switch 2 version of Dead by Daylight." They also confirmed no plans to drop Switch 1 support — so a Switch 2 does not move you out of the delayed window, because you are still on the Switch build.
How do you turn crossplay off in Dead by Daylight?
From the main menu only. Behaviour's instructions:
"While in Dead by Daylight's main menu, click on 'settings'. There, the option for cross-play will be visible and can be toggled on or off. Please note that if you are in any sort of lobby, you won't be able to enable or disable this feature. It must be done from the main menu."
If the option looks greyed out or missing, you are almost certainly still in a lobby.
What happens next is where the two official documents disagree, and the difference is not academic.
- The support-site article says: "This means you will play only with players from your own platform. Please note that matchmaking times might be longer as there will be fewer players to match with."
- The forum knowledge-base article is more specific: "The player will play only with players from their platform, who also have cross-play disabled."
The forum wording describes the queue you will actually sit in: not everyone on your platform, but the subset who also opted out. For scale, Dead by Daylight had 31,395 concurrent players on Steam at 05:48 UTC on 13 October 2026 — one platform, at a quiet hour. The opted-out slice of it is a fraction of a fraction.
In practice: long Survivor queues, very long Killer queues, and a wider skill spread in the matches you do get. Treat it as a trade, not a free setting.
Does the Denuvo anti-cheat trial split Steam players off?
No. The trials generated a lot of speculation that Steam players would be fenced into their own pool; Behaviour addressed it in the Anti-Cheat Trials announcements of 26 August 2026 and 2 September 2026, in the same sentence both times:
"Anti-Cheat Trials are exclusive to Steam and cross-play will not be impacted."
The trial installs Denuvo Anti-Cheat on first launch for Steam players and is required to play. Behaviour was equally explicit that it is anti-cheat and not DRM — the announcements separate "what we ARE trialing" (Denuvo Anti-Cheat) from "what we ARE NOT trialing" (Denuvo Anti-Piracy) — and confirm Steam Deck and Proton compatibility has been tested.
One genuine PC-side version trap that does break crossplay: the Public Test Build. The PTB is a separate Steam beta branch, so a PC player opted into it is on a different build to the live game and cannot match with it. Opt back out of the beta branch before wondering where your friends went.
How do you add friends on other platforms?
Crossplay handles matchmaking. Cross-Friends is the separate feature that lets you invite someone, and it does not read your Steam, PSN or Xbox friends list. It uses a Dead by Daylight ID.
Behaviour's steps:
- Open your Friends list from the icon at the bottom of the screen.
- Click the add friend icon at the top of the screen.
- Search for your friend's Dead by Daylight ID.
- Click Invite A Friend next to their name. They respond the next time they log in.
The format trips people up. A Dead by Daylight ID is a username followed by four unique characters — Behaviour's own example is Xavier_BHVR#07a3. Searching the username alone will not find them, so ask for those four characters.
Behaviour attaches a safety note to this that is easy to skim past and worth repeating: "We recommend you do not publish your DBD ID or your friends list in public."
Crossplay vs cross-progression: what is actually shared?
The two get used interchangeably and are not the same system.
| System | Crossplay | Cross-Progression |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Lets players on different platforms share a trial | Syncs one inventory across your own platforms |
| On by default? | Yes | No — you must link and sync a Behaviour account |
| Account needed? | No | Yes, a Behaviour account |
| Reversible? | Yes, toggle it in Settings | No — syncing cannot be undone |
| Switch handled normally? | Only while versions match | Mostly, but purchased Auric Cells never leave the Switch |
Bloodpoints, Iridescent Shards and Rift Fragments pool across synced platforms; Auric Cells do not on Switch. The full breakdown, including the one-way DLC rule for Switch, is in our DBD cross-progression guide.
What crossplay still does not do
Five current, official limitations that are routinely misreported as bugs:
- No cross-platform text chat. Behaviour: "The in-game chat is not currently available or visible to console players. Only PC players have access to pre-game and post-game chat." A console player genuinely cannot see what you typed, and there is still no way to message anyone through the DBD friends list either.
- You cannot tell which platform someone is on. Players from another platform carry a logo marking them as a crossplay connection, but, in Behaviour's words, "it will not specify which platform they are using."
- Crossplay does not unlock content you do not own. You will see other players using cosmetics and characters unavailable on your platform; you will not gain access to them.
- No keyboard-and-mouse support on console. Asked directly whether crossplay would bring it, Behaviour's answer was "There's no current plan at the moment," and that has not changed.
Want more Dead by Daylight guides? These are the other current-patch explainers in this series.
- DBD cross-progression: how to set it up and exactly what transfers
- DBD PTB: how to download and play the public test build
- DBD 10.2.0 PTB to live changes: every perk BHVR changed, kept and reverted
- How to redeem codes in Dead by Daylight on every platform
- DBD killer tier list 2026: all 44 killers ranked for Patch 10.2.0
FAQ
Is Dead by Daylight crossplay on by default? Yes. Crossplay is enabled unless you have deliberately turned it off in the main menu Settings, and it covers all eight supported platforms without any account linking.
Can PS5 and Xbox Series X players play Dead by Daylight together? Yes. Behaviour lists PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S and X as four separate supported platforms in one shared crossplay pool, so any combination of them works.
Why is my Nintendo Switch friend not showing up in a lobby? Most likely a version mismatch. Since September 2025 Switch receives Release Updates about two days after other platforms and one bugfix patch up to a week later, and Behaviour states that during those windows "players on Nintendo Switch will be unable to play with friends or other players on other platforms." Wait for the Switch build to land; no setting on either side changes it.
Does turning off crossplay really just match me with my own platform? Not quite. Behaviour's forum FAQ is the precise version: you match only with players on your platform who have also disabled crossplay. That is a much smaller pool than "everyone on PlayStation", which is why queues get noticeably longer.
Does Dead by Daylight Mobile have crossplay? The question no longer applies. Dead by Daylight Mobile was a separate product that never shared crossplay with PC or console, and its service ended on 20 March 2025.
Will the Denuvo anti-cheat trial stop me playing with console friends? No. Behaviour stated in both Anti-Cheat Trials announcements that the trials "are exclusive to Steam and cross-play will not be impacted."
Is there a Nintendo Switch 2 version of Dead by Daylight? No. Behaviour's position as of its Switch release-time FAQ is that there are "no plans at the present time" for an upgraded Switch 2 version, and no plans to change Switch 1 support either.
Sources
- Behaviour Interactive support — Which platforms are included in cross-play?, What happens if one platform gets an update later than others?, How do I deactivate cross-play?, What happens if I deactivate cross-play?
- Behaviour Interactive support — FAQ for Nintendo Switch Release Time Changes
- Behaviour Interactive forums — Cross-Play knowledge-base article
- Dead by Daylight — Anti-Cheat Trials are now Live, 2 September 2026 and the Cross-Play and Cross-Friends release announcement
