Best Of
10 Best Crossplay Games on Xbox Game Pass (September 2026)
Looking for the best Xbox Game Pass crossplay games in 2026? Games with crossplay support make it easy to team up with friends no matter what system they’re using. You can squad up, compete, or explore together without limits. Game Pass keeps adding new titles that bring everyone into one shared world. It’s all about easy access, shared fun, and non-stop action with friends.
What Defines the Best Crossplay Games?
It all comes down to connection, not just between platforms, but between players. Whether it’s racing, surviving, fighting, or causing chaos in co-op, the best crossplay games bring people together without the hassle. Fast matchmaking, stable servers, and solid multiplayer design are what make them work. When a game lets you squad up across systems and just jump into the action, that’s where the fun really clicks. Every pick in this list delivers both good gameplay and good times with friends.
From wild co-op disasters to full-scale shared adventures, this lineup covers the Xbox Game Pass crossplay games worth loading up with friends in 2026. Here are the picks that bring strong multiplayer action, smooth cross-platform play, and plenty of reasons to keep coming back.
10. Riders Republic
Race bikes, ski, snowboard, and fly wingsuits across massive open terrain
Riders Republic is a multiplayer extreme sports game that lets you bike, ski, snowboard, wingsuit, and even jetpack around in one massive open world. All of it in the same session. And you can switch between sports while roaming freely, so one moment you’re pedaling down a dirt trail and the next you’re gliding mid-air in a wingsuit. Some races, in fact, force you to swap mid-event too, like you’ll start biking, hit a ramp, swap into skis on a snowy slope, and finish the whole thing airborne. It’s absurd. But the good kind of absurd. Plus, while you’re doing your snowboard run, you’ll spot other players zooming overhead in their own separate wingsuit event happening at the same time.
Moreover, the game doesn’t lock you into any single sport. You can pour hours into mountain biking and completely skip snowboarding if you want. Or bounce between everything. The bike racing, mind you, is the highlight for me because the drifting around tight corners at full speed has this satisfying weight to it. Still, trick competitions bring their own thing since you’re landing mid-air flips for points. Riders Republic belongs on the Xbox Game Pass crossplay games 2026 list because competing against a huge crowd of players across platforms is something you won’t get from many other games right now.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC
9. Ultimate Sheep Raccoon
Build obstacle courses on bikes, then race through the chaos you created
Ultimate Sheep Raccoon is a bike-racing party game where everyone picks an animal character, and between each round, you all place traps and obstacles on the course. Ramps, spinning blades, bouncy pads, spikes, laser-emitting TVs, all of it goes on the track. And then you race through the mess you just created. On bikes. With wobbly, loose physics where your wheels seem to have a mind of their own. See, you want to make the course brutal enough to wreck your opponents, but you still have to finish it yourself. It’s a follow-up to Ultimate Chicken Horse, which was the same concept but as a platformer.
Still, the bike physics here shake up everything, because now you’ve got momentum and speed to deal with on top of all the traps. And the power-ups make things even messier. Jetpacks let you fly over a section you know is rigged, parachutes help you float past danger, and bouncy mines can wreck someone’s entire run in a second. Plus, doing backflips and wheelies mid-race earns you bonus points, so there’s always a reason to show off even when it’s risky. Lastly, no two sessions end up playing out the same way, because your friends will always find new ways to sabotage each other.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Nintendo Switch 1, Nintendo Switch 2
8. Dead by Daylight
Four survivors repair generators to escape while one killer hunts them all
Dead by Daylight is an asymmetric multiplayer horror game. And by asymmetric, I mean the two sides play completely differently from each other. So four players are survivors, and they need to repair generators scattered across the map to power up exit gates and escape. The fifth player is the killer, whose whole deal is to chase you down, hit you, and hang you on meathooks. Survivors get a third-person view, so you can peek around corners and see the killer approaching. But the killer plays in first person, and that camera shift alone adds a whole layer of claustrophobic pressure to every chase.
The killer roster has grown massively over the years, with each killer carrying a unique ability. You might face one who teleports across the map, or one who goes completely invisible mid-chase. Plus, survivors have customizable perk builds you can mix and match, so there’s always a new strategy to try. Now, the community has a love-hate relationship with this game, and people will complain about balance all day. But they still come back. Also, the crossplay pool across all major platforms is enormous, and matches fill up fast regardless of when you’re playing.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch
7. Brawlhalla
Pick a legend, grab weapons mid-fight, and launch opponents off the stage
Brawlhalla is a 2D fighting game with a roster of over 50 characters called Legends. And if you’ve played Super Smash Bros. before, you’ll get the feel of it immediately. You pick your Legend, you jump onto floating platforms, and you try to knock opponents off the screen. Straightforward enough. But the combat works differently from most fighting games because there are no health bars at all. You have a damage meter, and as it climbs higher with each hit you absorb, your character flies farther when someone connects a solid strike. So by the end of a match, everyone is at max damage and a single well-placed attack sends someone spiraling off the edge. It gets wild.
Also, you don’t spawn holding anything. Weapon pickups appear at random spots on the stage, and you’re fighting unarmed until you grab one. And each Legend has two weapon types tied to them, stuff like swords, hammers, spears, blasters, or gauntlets, with signature attacks unique to that character. So your approach shifts entirely based on which weapon you end up grabbing mid-fight. I dig how this forces you to adapt on the fly rather than memorize one combo and repeat it. Plus, the crossplay community across all platforms is massive, and I’ve rarely waited more than a few seconds for a match to fill up.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android
6. Moving Out 2
Grab furniture with friends and haul it into a truck before time runs out
Moving Out 2 is about moving furniture. I know, it might sound boring. But the physics are so intentionally messed up that everything goes sideways the moment you try to carry a couch through a door. Here, you grab household stuff like fridges, tables, boxes, lamps, whatever, and toss it all into a moving truck before the timer runs out. However, the couch gets stuck in the doorframe. The fridge bounces off a trampoline. And someone on the team just chucked a fragile box straight through a window. Plus, everyone’s yelling “I said on three” while nobody is actually counting.
The sequel added online co-op with crossplay too, so roping in friends across different platforms and making the madness even worse is easy now. I think the reason this works so well is because there’s nothing to explain to anyone. You grab stuff, you carry it, you throw it in the truck. Done. Even someone who’s never touched a controller gets it in about ten seconds. Worth noting, the levels get way more creative the further you go, with weirder settings and new obstacles messing with your plans. But the best part is when everything crumbles at the same time.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch
5. Deep Rock Galactic
Mine caves with friends while fighting alien bugs underground
Deep Rock Galactic revolves around space dwarves working for a mining corporation, and you basically drop into these underground caves to dig out minerals while alien bugs try to kill you. The caves are randomly generated, so the layout changes with each run, and honestly the whole map is destructible too. You can drill through walls, carve tunnels in any direction, and create your own paths as you move deeper. Once you finish collecting resources, extraction starts, the drop pod lands at some random spot inside the cave, and your whole group has to rush back through whatever messy network of holes you dug out over the last run.
There are different dwarf classes to pick from before each mission, and they all carry separate tools, so one can shoot ziplines across gaps while another literally drills a straight line through rock to reach the pod faster. The bugs also swarm in waves, so you end up switching between mining and fighting constantly. On top of that, each biome has its own hazards. Lastly, the community around this game has been active for years now, and there is this whole culture of players shouting “Rock and Stone” at each other mid-mission, which pretty much tells you the vibe. So, if you are exploring the best crossplay games on Xbox Game Pass, Deep Rock Galactic is well worth your time.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC
4. Sea of Thieves
Sail ships, hunt treasure, and outsmart other pirate crews online
I’ve had sessions in Sea of Thieves where I spent ages loading treasure onto my ship, carefully sailing back to an outpost, and then someone cannon-balled onto my deck from their ship and stole everything. And I couldn’t even be upset, because that’s how the game is meant to be played. The ocean here is shared with other crews, and you’re all doing your own thing until you cross paths. Well, you can’t just point your ship somewhere and go. Wind direction matters, sail angle matters, and if you’re on a bigger vessel, you need people handling different jobs at the same time. So even something as basic as changing course requires coordination with your crew.
And after years of seasonal updates, the world has way more to do than it did in the early days. There are multi-chapter story voyages, massive sea creatures that show up randomly while you’re sailing, and world events scattered across the map. Still, the core of it remains the same. You grab a voyage, you sail, you dig up or fight for your loot, and you try to cash it in before another crew messes things up for you. Plus, your cosmetics and reputation sync across devices with crossplay, so switching between sessions on different hardware is seamless. But I’ll be straight with you, sessions can run long, easily an hour or more, and if you log off before handing in your treasure, it’s gone.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5
3. Shift At Midnight
Run a gas station at night and figure out who’s human
The concept here is you’re working at a gas station during the night shift, handling all the usual stuff like stocking shelves, selling products, and cleaning up. But some of the customers walking in aren’t human. They’re doppelgangers, and they look exactly like regular people, which means you can’t tell just by looking at them. You ask them questions, check their ID, and then cross-reference everything on the store’s computer to see if the details match. If someone’s date of birth is off or their face doesn’t quite match the photo, that’s your clue.
However, if you mess up and let a fake customer walk out, they come back later during the same shift as a creature trying to hunt you down. It’s intense because you’re also trying to meet a sales quota while doing all this detective work at the same time. Now, when a creature does show up, you’ve got maybe a minute to board up the doors, set traps, and find somewhere to hide. Plus, the customer lineups change with each playthrough, meaning you can’t just memorize who’s fake and breeze through it. Shift At Midnight is on Game Pass as a day-one addition, and it has crossplay between Xbox and PC. It’s an easy recommendation if you’re browsing through best Game Pass crossplay games in 2026.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC (Game Pass)
2. Forza Horizon 6
Race hundreds of cars across Japan’s roads in an open world
Forza Horizon has been doing the open-world racing thing for over a decade now. Each game in this series picks a new country to set its map in. This time it’s Japan, which fans had been asking for since forever. The map here is packed with snowy mountain roads, bamboo-lined trails, coastal highways, and a condensed version of downtown Tokyo that’s apparently several times bigger than any city they’ve done before. The standout detail here, I think, is the fog-of-war map. So when you first open the map, most of it is greyed out. Roads and landmarks only reveal themselves as you physically drive through them.
Now, on the crossplay side, it’s all seamless. You load into the open world and other players from different devices are already there racing alongside you, without you needing to toggle anything. Cross-progression is also baked in, so your car collection and race data sync through cloud saves when you switch devices. Plus, there’s this CoLab feature where a bunch of players can build custom tracks together in the same session and share them with the community. In the Game Pass crossplay games catalog, Forza Horizon 6 is the definitive racing pick.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC
1. Subnautica 2
Survive an alien ocean with friends, build bases, and dodge massive creatures
The original Subnautica was a solo-only survival game where you crashed on an alien ocean planet and had to figure out everything yourself, from oxygen to food to building an underwater base. It became one of the most popular survival games out there. And the one thing fans kept asking for, year after year, was multiplayer. Well, Subnautica 2 finally delivers on that. You and your friends can now dive into a brand-new alien ocean together, explore biomes, collect resources, craft tools, and build bases cooperatively.
Furthermore, the ocean itself is terrifying in the most satisfying way. You’ve got massive predator creatures roaming the deeper biomes, and you can’t fight them. There’s no combat here, which is an intentional design decision carried over from the original. You have to rely on movement, stealth, and your knowledge of how creatures behave to stay alive. Subnautica 2 hit Game Pass as a day-one title in May 2026 and sold over a million copies within 24 hours on Steam alone. It’s hard to argue against those numbers, which is why Subnautica 2 leads our best crossplay games on Xbox Game Pass picks for 2026.
Crossplay Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC
FAQs
Do all these games need Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for crossplay to work?
It depends on the game. Titles like Brawlhalla are free-to-play, so you can download and use crossplay without any subscription at all. But for premium games like Forza Horizon 6, Subnautica 2, and Shift At Midnight, you’ll need an active Game Pass subscription to access them through the service. And if you’re on console specifically, online multiplayer typically requires at least Game Pass Essential or Ultimate.
Can I invite a friend on PlayStation to play these Game Pass games with me?
Some of these games do support PlayStation crossplay, but others are limited to Xbox and PC. Sea of Thieves, Dead by Daylight, Brawlhalla, and Riders Republic all allow you to match with PlayStation players. However, Deep Rock Galactic, Subnautica 2, Shift At Midnight, and Forza Horizon 6 currently restrict crossplay to the Xbox and PC ecosystem. So before you send that invite, it’s worth checking whether your friend’s platform is supported for the specific title.
Which of these games are good for someone who doesn’t play games often?
Moving Out 2 is probably the easiest pick here because the concept is straightforward, you’re just moving furniture from a house to a truck. It also has assist options that let you adjust the speed and difficulty, which makes it comfortable for casual players. Ultimate Sheep Raccoon is another solid option since the bike-racing format is simple to grasp, and the chaos of the obstacle courses makes skill gaps feel less noticeable. Riders Republic is also approachable because the open-world structure lets you do activities at your own pace.
How many players can join together in the largest multiplayer game on this list?
Riders Republic supports massive races with up to 64 players in a single event, which makes it the biggest multiplayer experience here by a wide margin. Ultimate Sheep Raccoon caps at 8 players, and Sea of Thieves allows crews of up to 4 on a single ship. Most other games on this list support groups of 3 to 4 players in co-op. So if you’re after large-scale multiplayer mayhem, Riders Republic is the clear pick.
Do any of these Game Pass crossplay games also support local couch co-op?
Yes, a few of them do. Moving Out 2 supports up to 4 players on the same screen alongside its online crossplay mode, and you can even split a single controller between two players if you’re short on gamepads. Ultimate Sheep Raccoon also has local multiplayer for up to 8 players on one device in addition to its online crossplay. Brawlhalla allows local matches too, so you and a friend on the same couch can team up or fight each other before jumping online.
Are any of these crossplay games completely free to play even without Game Pass?
Brawlhalla is entirely free on every platform, so you don’t need Game Pass or any purchase to play it. The roster rotates free characters weekly, and all gameplay content is accessible without spending a thing. Dead by Daylight is available through Game Pass, but if your subscription lapses, you’d need to buy it separately. Everything else on this list requires either a Game Pass subscription or a standalone purchase to access.
Which game on this list is the newest addition to Game Pass in 2026?
Shift At Midnight joined Game Pass as a day-one title in July 2026, and Subnautica 2 arrived on the service in May 2026. Forza Horizon 6 also launched on Game Pass in May 2026 with day-one access for Ultimate and PC subscribers. These three are the freshest entries on the list, and all of them landed on the service within the same year. So if you want the most current experiences, these are the ones to try first.
Can I play these games solo if none of my friends are online?
Absolutely. Almost every game on this list has a solo option. Subnautica 2 can be completed entirely alone, and Deep Rock Galactic pairs you with an AI companion called Bosco when you play without a group. Sea of Thieves has a Safer Seas mode designed for solo players, and Forza Horizon 6 lets you race through the full campaign by yourself. Even Dead by Daylight has a bot mode for practice. The crossplay component enhances all of these, but none of them force you to play with others.
Do these crossplay Game Pass games receive regular content updates?
Most of them do. Forza Horizon 6 has an active post-launch roadmap with seasonal content, new cars, and upcoming expansions. Sea of Thieves continues to roll out seasonal updates with new events and voyages. Dead by Daylight releases new characters and themed events frequently as well. Subnautica 2 is currently in early access, so new features, creatures, and biomes are being added through patches over time. And Brawlhalla consistently introduces new crossover character packs throughout the year.


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