Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War PS5 PlayStation 5 1

Cross-platform play is cool and all, until you realise you have an ultra-fast SSD and the people you’re playing with don’t. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War reveals a problem that we’d anticipated prior to launch: you’ll never see any speed advantages in multiplayer, because the game will always be held back by the lowest common denominator.

Obviously, in this case, Activision’s releasing the title on the PlayStation 5, as well as the PlayStation 4, PC, and various other Xbox platforms. After an evening with the game, we’d peg the average multiplayer map load at about three to four seconds on Sony’s next-gen console, but because you’ll be pooled with players from all of the above systems, you’ll be left to wait for up to a minute before the match gets underway.

This is going to be a problem that all cross-platform games will encounter for the foreseeable future. Obviously if you land in a lobby where everyone’s playing on a faster console or computer, then the delays will be reduced, but chances are you’re always going to match with someone on a PS4 or Xbox One – at least for the foreseeable future anyway.

We’re not entirely sure whether you can disable cross-platform play just yet, but seeing as it’s so integral to the way the game works, it doesn’t seem likely. You can find a full list of all PS5 and PS4 crossplay games through the link, and these are the ones you should expect to leave you hanging around – even if you’re playing on Sony’s new system.