If you’ve ever queued for a casual match and wondered if your friend on PlayStation can join your PC lobby, you’ve probably asked can you do crossplay on Rainbow Six Siege. Cross-platform play has become standard for most modern multiplayer games, but Ubisoft has rolled out support for R6 Siege in phases, so rules vary a lot depending on what device you’re using and what game mode you want to play. I’ve tested crossplay across 3 different platforms over the last two years, so I’ll break down exactly what works, what doesn’t, and how to avoid common issues that get you stuck in separate lobbies.
Which Platforms Support Crossplay for Rainbow Six Siege?
As of the latest update, crossplay is supported across most major platforms, but there are separate pools for PC and console players to keep matches fair. Console crossplay works between PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One by default, so anyone on these devices can queue together for casual, ranked, or custom games without adjusting any extra settings most of the time. PC crossplay is limited to Steam, Epic Games Store, and Ubisoft Connect players right now, and PC players cannot queue with console players in any public match type. Ubisoft made this call to avoid input advantage gaps, since mouse and keyboard players have far faster response times than controller players in most tactical shooter scenarios.
There’s also support for Rainbow Six Siege Mobile crossplay with other mobile players, but mobile lobbies are completely separate from both PC and console pools as of now. Ubisoft has hinted they might test crossplay between mobile and console in the future, but there’s no official release date for that feature yet. If you mostly play custom games with friends, you can enable crossplay between PC and console in custom lobbies only, which is a nice workaround for private scrims or casual game nights.
How to Enable Crossplay on Rainbow Six Siege for Your Device
Crossplay is enabled by default for most new installs, but if you turned it off in the past or are using a new account, you can turn it back on in just a few steps. The process varies slightly by platform, but the core steps are the same for all console and PC devices:
- Open the main menu and click the settings gear icon in the top right corner of the screen
- Navigate to the “General” tab, then scroll down until you find the “Crossplay Matchmaking” option
- Toggle the setting to “On”, then save your changes and restart your game for the update to take effect
If you want to play with friends on a different console platform, you’ll also need to link your Ubisoft Connect account to your console profile, and add your friends to your Ubisoft friends list instead of just your platform-specific friends list. You don’t need a paid Ubisoft+ subscription to use crossplay, even if you’re playing on a free weekend or a borrowed copy of the game. I’ve had friends run into issues where their Ubisoft account was linked to an old email they no longer use, so double check your account link settings if you still can’t see your friends in the lobby after enabling crossplay. If you still can’t see crossplay options after following these steps, you might be running an outdated version of the game, so update to the latest patch to make sure you have access to all crossplay features, even if you never asked can you do crossplay on Rainbow Six Siege before.
Crossplay Restrictions You Need to Know Before Queuing
While crossplay works seamlessly for most match types, there are a few key restrictions that can catch new players off guard. If you’ve asked can you do crossplay on Rainbow Six Siege specifically for ranked matches, the answer is yes only if you and your friends are all on console or all on PC. The biggest one is the ranked crossplay split between PC and console, which isn’t going away any time soon per Ubisoft’s official competitive guidelines. Even if you’re a controller player on PC, you’ll still be placed in PC lobbies, so you can’t queue with your console friends for ranked matches.
Another common restriction is for region-locked accounts. If you made your Ubisoft account in a different region than your friend, you might not be able to queue for crossplay matches unless you both set your matchmaking region to the same location. You also can’t use crossplay for some limited-time event modes when they first launch, since Ubisoft often rolls out support for these modes a few days after the event goes live to fix initial bugs. That means if you’re excited to play a new Halloween or April Fools mode with your cross-platform friends, you might have to wait a few days before you can queue together.
You also might find that crossplay is disabled automatically if you have a lot of recent reports or toxic behavior strikes on your account. Ubisoft uses this as a moderation tool to limit how many players toxic users can interact with, so if your crossplay setting is greyed out and you can’t adjust it, check your account status for any active penalties. Most of these penalties expire after 7 to 30 days if you don’t get any additional reports. I’ve seen players get locked out of crossplay for a week just for yelling at their team in a casual match, so it’s always better to keep comms friendly if you want to play with friends across platforms.
Common Questions When You Ask Can You Do Crossplay on Rainbow Six Siege
There are a lot of outdated guides online that reference old crossplay rules from before 2022, so I’ll answer the most common questions I get from my community to clear up confusion. First, no, you won’t lose any of your existing progress if you enable crossplay, since all your stats are tied to your Ubisoft Connect account anyway. If you switch from Xbox to PlayStation, for example, you can keep all your operator unlocks, skins, and rank as long as you link the same Ubisoft account to both devices. If you’ve asked can you do crossplay on Rainbow Six Siege for custom scrims with your esports team, the answer is yes even if you mix PC and console players, as long as you’re all in the same custom lobby and have crossplay enabled.
A lot of players also ask if they can turn crossplay off if they don’t want to play with people on other platforms. The answer is yes, you can toggle the setting off at any time, and you’ll only be matched with players on the same device family as you. If you turn crossplay off on PlayStation 5, for example, you’ll only be matched with other PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 players, so your queue times might be a bit longer, but you won’t have to worry about playing against Xbox players if that’s what you prefer. A lot of console players turn off crossplay when they’re grinding ranked, since it cuts down on the pool of players they have to face and makes it easier to climb the ranks faster.
One question I get a lot from new players is if crossplay increases the risk of running into cheaters. For console players, the risk is almost zero, since console lobbies don’t mix with PC lobbies, which have a slightly higher rate of cheat reports. For PC players, crossplay between Steam, Epic, and Ubisoft Connect doesn’t change the anti-cheat rules, since all players still have to run BattlEye to join public matches, so you don’t have to worry about more cheaters just because you have crossplay enabled. If you do run into a suspected cheater in a crossplay lobby, you can report them the same way you would report any other player, and Ubisoft’s moderation team will review the match footage within 48 hours in most cases.
At the end of the day, the answer to can you do crossplay on Rainbow Six Siege depends almost entirely on what platforms you and your friends are using, and what match types you want to play. As long as you’re all on console, or all on PC, you can queue for almost any public match type together with just a few quick setting adjustments. If you run into issues, double check your Ubisoft account links and make sure you don’t have any active account penalties that are blocking crossplay access. It’s a great feature that makes it way easier to play with friends no matter what console they own, and it’s only going to get more polished as Ubisoft rolls out additional updates in the future.
