Cross-Save, Cross-Progression and Cross-Play: Which Multiplatform Promises Meet Your Needs?

Multiplatform games and their promise of carrying your progress across multiple platforms are a modern gaming mainstay. But the industry’s use of cross-play, cross-save, and cross-progression has never coalesced into consistent language, leading to potential player disappointment at launch and beyond. Ubisoft highlighted this confusion in their For Honor cross-progression FAQ, where terms like "cross-family" and "same-family" transfers were used to clarify that cross-progression doesn’t automatically mean cross-ownership. The line between transferable progress and transferable purchases remains unclear, with exceptions to the general rule that purchases don’t carry over between platforms. For example, EA’s Apex Legends FAQ states that linking accounts merges Apex Coins into a single wallet, while Cyberpunk 2077’s cross-progression uploads saves to the cloud but excludes DLC, affecting only the most recent game progress.

The core features games offer are not equivalent, though players often use the terms of art interchangeably. This description sorts the promises.

Cross-play means that you can play the same full instance of the game with players on different platforms. For most first-person shooters, that means gaming with a PlayStation 5 player from a PC or Xbox. It brings your friends into the mission, regardless of platform. If cross-save doesn't carry over enough to make play practical, for example, cross-play gives you a band-aid.

Take cross-progression. Cross-progression transfers progress between platforms, including earning, acquisition, and experience. It means you keep your game career between Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, if the game supports the feature. Wargaming's World of Warships added cross-progression in March 2021, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare struggled with implementing it for years. Though GameSpot reported on plans for cross-progression during the 2019 beta, the feature was never fully realized.

Of the three, cross-progression carries the most data. Most cross-progression features save and restore your game career to any platform you play on, including quest completion, mission advancement or win counts, and saves from any condition you got to in-game. Warframe, for example, tracks quests, Syndicate ranks, Focus, Intrinsics, Helminth unlocks, and currently active Kuva Liches or Sisters of Parvos as part of cross-progression.

Cross-save, implemented in games like Bungie’s Destiny series, takes it one step back by only saving and loading your mission. Cyberpunk 2077 goes a step beyond the general cross-progression definition, though its approach is specific to the game. It saves your latest game to the cloud, so you can take your game to a different platform, but it does not consider the progress you made before your latest save.

Good or bad, cosmetics and progress don’t necessarily carry over in modern cross-progression. Some games support cross-play without transferring cosmetic items, while others, like Cyberpunk 2077, restrict cross-progression to their latest saves by design.

The Publisher Account Requirement

Publisher account linking enables cross-progression, though with some limitations. For Warframe, linking your platform accounts in-game grants both cross-play and progression features. Cyberpunk 2077 requires connecting the game to a CD PROJEKT account and manually enabling cross-platform saves in the settings. Similarly, permissions to download documents in Google Drive follow the same process.

Not all features carry over seamlessly—purchases, DLC, and cross-ownership may still be restricted depending on the platform or publisher policies.

Purchasing and DLC are subject to cross-platform restrictions, with varying policies depending on the game. A player's progress in Genshin Impact carries over across PlayStation, PC, and mobile versions, but DLC purchases remain tied to the original platform. Ownership of content does not transfer between platforms—a policy confirmed by Ubisoft in their For Honor FAQ, though the exact source for this claim should be verified. EA offers a more flexible approach with Apex Legends, allowing Apex Coins to be used across platforms once accounts are linked. However, purchasing new DLC still requires separate transactions on each platform.

Deciding Which Platform to Play On Today

Start your platform selection process by asking: does this progress cover all I want, and is the game look-and-feel the same on all platforms? If you just want to catch the latest save and let it go, hook up Cyberpunk 2077 and march on. If you’re committed to your progress and want it available everywhere, link your Warframe account and get going. Remember, narrative can move or not. Cyberpunk 2077 gets concepts of post-gaming wrong.

For Honor is the outlier in Ubisoft’s growing portfolio of cross-progression games. The listed Ubisoft futures include Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, Immortals, and Riders Republic. Whatever game you’re playing, Ubisoft’s not making the leap to cross-progressing ownership. Optimized game saves, data, and warps work for Ubisoft and EA, but aren’t everywhere.

Sign and Verify

The software framework is all there for publishers to strictly define cross-play, cross-save, and cross-progression. Except for their attempts, it’s largely up to competing publishers to make precise definitions, and then apply to games in a consistent manner. EA and Ubisoft’s partial transfer definitions apparently work, while the blanket approach of another major publisher came back secure in terms, trust, and speed. Still, you have one layer of defense against game-generations in your terms for cross-progression. Don’t trust terms as a cover letter in game announcements. One at a time, reference the game support page, or use 'cross platform' and 'cross-progression’ across multiple pages to see if they’re signaled consistently. Inconsistency is a final flag, and a license to contact the publisher.

For further details, check the publisher's official support materials regarding purchase progression.