Jumping into the Broomstick Mess: Why I Had to Test This Crossplay Stuff Myself
I swear, trying to figure out if a modern video game actually supports crossplay is a job in itself. You read the box, you check the official site—they always say things like “Multiplayer Supported!” or “Connect with Friends!” but they never just come out and say: “Yes, a dude on a PS5 can play with a guy on an Xbox Series X.” It’s always a vague, messy soup of marketing terms.
My own journey into this Quidditch game started because of a simple bet. My neighbor, who only plays on his beat-up PC, kept arguing with my kid, who is glued to the PlayStation 5. The kid was convinced they could team up; the neighbor insisted there was no way. I figured, I’m the practical one here, I’ll just shell out the cash and settle this once and for all. This is how I ended up owning the same game three times—a total financial pain, but hey, gotta get the facts, right?
The Setup and The Dreaded Account Linking
The first step was sinking the time. I bought the digital version on Steam for the PC, the standard edition on the Xbox Series X, and then snagged the PS5 version. Three downloads. Three installs. Already a waste of a Saturday.
The next hurdle was the obligatory account linkage. Every game now makes you create some proprietary publisher account just to shake hands with your console ID. I already had my account set up from some other random game I’d played years ago, but trying to remember the password for an account I use once every five years? Forget about it. I spent a solid hour resetting passwords, verifying emails, and linking the three separate game instances to the main publisher ID. It was a digital nightmare just trying to get to the main menu screen on all three machines simultaneously.
Once I finally got everything linked up, I started firing up the systems. I gathered my testing squad: me on the PS5, my friend Mike on the Xbox, and my other buddy, Sarah, on the PC. The goal was simple: invite each other to a custom match and see what broke.
The Actual Test – Console vs. Console
The real confusion always happens between the two big console rivals. Can PlayStation talk to Xbox? That’s the golden question, and often the one developers avoid answering directly.
I started on my PS5. I navigated to the ‘Social’ menu. I could see my PSN friends, obviously, but what I was looking for was an option to search for players by the publisher’s unique ID or username, which is usually the key to crossplay.
- Attempt 1 (PS5 inviting Xbox): I tried searching for Mike’s unique Xbox Gamertag username through the in-game search bar. Nothing. It said “User Not Found.” Total bust.
- Attempt 2 (Xbox inviting PS5): Mike tried adding me on his side using my PSN ID. Again, no success. The system seemed siloed. It only cared about its native ecosystem friends list.
This led me to believe the official marketing copy was either misleading or I missed a crucial step. I dug into the settings again. There was a general setting labeled “Enable Cross-Network Play.” It was toggled ‘On’ by default on both consoles. So why wasn’t it working?
I realized the crucial difference: this game wasn’t using a simple invite system. To play with someone on another console, you both had to be in the main lobby, and then one of you had to create a custom lobby, get the unique room code, and then the other person had to manually enter that code. This is a massive pain compared to just sending a quick invite.
Result of the Console Test: We managed to join the same match, but only by painstakingly setting up private lobbies and sharing 8-digit codes over text message. It wasn’t seamless crossplay; it was technical cross-connection. You could play together, but the friendship features were completely locked down.
The PC Hiccup and the Real Discovery
Next up was Sarah on PC. PC players usually have the most headaches connecting to consoles because of different patches and system structures. I figured if PS5 and Xbox were difficult, PC would be impossible.
Interestingly, the PC experience was marginally better, but only because the game’s UI on Steam seemed more open to typing in random IDs. Sarah sent me her unique publisher ID—not her Steam name, but the long, often frustrating account name tied to the game’s developer.
I typed it into the PS5 search bar and BAM! She showed up. I sent a friend request. She accepted. We could now see each other online.
This was the moment I figured out the whole ugly truth. Crossplay wasn’t based on your console ID (PSN/Xbox Live); it was strictly based on the proprietary publisher account. If you didn’t have the exact, often obscure, developer account name of your friend, you couldn’t find them, even if you were on the same platform.
We ran three quick matches: PC and PS5 played perfectly. The connection was stable, and the input lag felt minimal. It worked, but only because we bypassed the console’s natural friend system entirely and relied solely on the developer’s infrastructure.
The Final Tally – What Works and What Doesn’t
So, after three downloads, three purchases, and five hours of troubleshooting the login process, here is the clear, practical answer to whether the Quidditch World Cup video game is crossplay. Forget the marketing bullet points, this is what actually happens when you try to play with your friends:
- True Cross-Platform (PS5 to Xbox Series X/S): Yes, but only for playing in the same match via a shared private lobby code. You cannot add each other as friends directly, and you cannot send direct game invites through the native friend systems.
- Console to PC (PS5/Xbox to Steam): Yes. This is the smoothest connection for adding friends directly, provided you use the developer’s specific account ID, not your Steam or PSN name. Once friended, direct inviting works.
- Cross-Generation (PS4 to PS5 / Xbox One to Series X/S): Absolutely, this always works easily. The game treats previous-gen consoles like they are running on the new machine—it’s not true cross-platform, it’s just the console family working together.
The bottom line? If you want to play with someone on a different ecosystem, you need to grab their specific, often long and confusing, publisher account name first. Don’t rely on your Gamertag or PSN ID. The crossplay feature is technically there, but it’s buried under layers of account management and terrible user experience. It’s a lot of unnecessary pain just to fly around on a broomstick together, but at least the record is straight now.