Dotemu, Guard Crush Games, and Supamonks have officially flipped the switch on the single most-requested feature in Absolum's seven-month post-launch life. Cross-play is now live across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam, meaning a two-player online co-op session can - for the first time - mix any combination of those five platforms in the same lobby.
The update rolled out on May 12, 2026, and Dotemu confirmed activation through the game's official social accounts that evening. There is no separate download required beyond the standard title update; the back-end matchmaking layer is already aware of every connected platform from this build forward.
What Changed With This Patch
Before today's update, Absolum's online co-op was a strictly platform-by-platform affair. PlayStation players could only match with other PlayStation players. Xbox players, Switch players, and Steam players all sat in their own queue lanes. Friend lists across stores existed in parallel universes. For a co-op-first rogue-lite built around picking up a friend's run and carrying them through Talamh, the limitation became one of the loudest complaints on Steam reviews and storefront discussions throughout late 2025.
Xbox specifically had an even more frustrating wait. The Series X|S version landed in March 2026 as a delayed port - five months after the PS5, Switch, and PC launches - and arrived without cross-play of its own, leaving Xbox owners cross-play-capable on paper but unable to actually use it for two more months.
The May 12 patch closes both gaps in one go. Lobbies created on any platform now auto-discover players on every other platform. Friend invites work through PSN, Xbox Live, Nintendo Network, or Steam Friends, and the game cross-references against the unified Dotemu account layer that was quietly added in the December 2025 update.
How The Cross-Play Layer Actually Works
Mechanically, the implementation here is closer to Hades than to a full crossplay-ID system like the one in Street Fighter 6. There is no dedicated Absolum username you log into - the game uses whatever platform identity you bring to it (PSN tag, Gamertag, Nintendo Network ID, Steam name) and exposes a join-code system for private matches.
For public matchmaking, the system looks at your selected hero, the run modifier (Standard, Difficult, or the new Cursed mode added in the April patch), and the act you're entering, then queues you against the global pool. In practice the matchmaking is fast enough on every region tested that you should not notice you are matching with someone three platforms away.
One small but smart concession: the game now also surfaces a small platform icon next to each player's name in the lobby. It is a tiny UI touch, but it matters when you are coordinating button-prompt callouts and someone else is reading them from a Switch Joy-Con instead of a DualSense.
Why This Was The Top Request
Absolum sits in an unusual genre intersection. It is a rogue-lite (one or two runs per session, big variance, build-driven), but it is also a 2D beat 'em up in the Streets of Rage 4 lineage - which Dotemu also published. Both halves of that combination push hard against single-platform multiplayer.
The rogue-lite half wants you to find a regular co-op partner because shared meta-progression and recurring loot synergies hit harder over multiple runs. The beat 'em up half wants you to play with whoever is around. Neither half tolerates the situation Absolum shipped with last year, where your beat-em-up-loving best friend on Switch and your rogue-lite-obsessed best friend on PS5 simply could not run a session with you.
It is also worth noting how strong the post-launch curve has been. The game launched in October 2025 with 91 percent positive reviews on Steam, then climbed to 93 percent across 4,257 reviews after the December and March patches. The cross-play patch is the third major update Dotemu has shipped this year, after the Cursed run modifier in April and the Xbox port in March, and it makes a strong case that Absolum's long tail is being treated like a live game in the best sense.
What's Still Single-Platform
One thing the patch doesn't touch: local co-op. Couch co-op is still the original two-on-one-screen experience it has always been, and that's fine; the entire point of cross-play is the network play that local can't replicate. Cross-progression between platforms also isn't part of this update - your Steam unlocks and your PS5 unlocks still live in separate save profiles for now, though Dotemu has said cross-progression is "being investigated" without committing to a timeline.
Save migration is the obvious next ask, but realistically that involves the kind of cloud-save plumbing that takes another six-to-nine month patch cycle to land cleanly, and Dotemu is being appropriately cautious about overpromising on it.
What This Means For Anyone Returning
If you bounced off Absolum's launch month because your co-op partner was on the wrong platform, this is the patch you have been waiting for. Pull the game off your library shelf, push the May update, and the very next online lobby you create can include anyone in your friends list, regardless of where they play. It is a small change on paper and a substantial one in practice. Seven months late, but exactly the patch the game needed.
