Overwatch is finally getting cross-play - five years after its original release. It's a feature the community has been screaming out for, and Blizzard has now heard those cries.

There's no word outside of "soon" for when cross-play is being implemented, but it will allow all console players to play against each other. To enable cross-play, you'll need to create and link a Battle.net account beforehand. While the feature is being introduced, it's been confirmed that cross-progression won't be available at launch.

The game's director Aaron Keller also shed some light on how cross-play works, explaining how console players will only play against other console players, unless they're partied up with someone on PC.

"By default, a party of console players will play with other console players. A party of PC players will play with PC players, as well as groups that consist of both PC and console players. Please note, this does not include competitive play. For competitive play specifically you will not be able to play as a party consisting of both PC and console players. They will each have their own separate matchmaking pool."

Despite this introduction, Overwatch 2 is still in active development. It's already been confirmed it won't be arriving this year, but fans were treated to a new look last month which introduced some of the many changes. The main one is the drop down from 6 vs. 6 to 5 vs.5 matches, which Blizzard believes will showcase a substantial change in the gameplay.

Are you happy to see cross-play added to Overwatch? Let us know in the comments below.

[source youtube.com]