Is Escape the Backrooms Crossplay? PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC

As of August 6, 2026, Escape the Backrooms is no longer a PC-only game. The title from Fancy Games and Blackbird Interactive, published by Secret Mode, has also been running on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 since May 28, 2026, and on Nintendo Switch 2 since July 7, 2026. Most importantly, all these versions play together.

The centerpiece is called the room code. Since the May 28 update, matchmaking runs on Epic Online Services, with no Epic account required, and every session generates a code that's shared by hand. It's now the most reliable way to bring together four players on four different machines, and the requirement for unlocking co-op achievements.

This guide takes stock of the real state of crossplay: what works, what the June patches fixed on the voice chat side, what remains disabled, and how to set up a mixed session without spending half an hour on it. Most recent version as of this writing: 1.3.2, rolled out on June 15, 2026 on all platforms.

Where the game runs, and with what content

A decisive point for mixed groups: the publisher states there is full content parity between the console versions and the Steam version. No one is locked out of a level that others don't have. However, there is neither a PS4 version nor an original Switch version.

The influx has been massive: as of July 7, Secret Mode claimed more than three million new players across all platforms combined. In practical terms, the public lobby list has never been so full, or so noisy.

The room code, how it works

The system is deliberately minimalist. As soon as a lobby is created, public or private, a code is automatically generated and displayed to all its members. You copy it, send it over Discord or by message, your teammates enter it in the code entry screen in the multiplayer menu ("Enter with Room Code" in the official patch notes), and they land directly in your game.

The advantage over the old system is twofold. On one hand, there's no more friends list to manage: no PSN add, no Xbox invite, no Steam friend to approve. On the other hand, no extra account is required, since Epic Online Services runs in the background without ever asking you to create an Epic Games account.

Three habits worth adopting:

• Hide the code if you're streaming. An option lets you automatically hide it on screen. Without it, any viewer of a livestream or video can drop into the middle of your run.
• Choose the host based on their connection. Sessions run on a peer-to-peer network: the host's connection carries the game, and if they disconnect, everyone drops. Give this role to the machine with the best connection, not necessarily the most powerful one.
• Read the platform icons. Each player displays a logo next to their username in the lobby, so you immediately know who's on a controller and who's on keyboard. A June 15 patch actually fixed the display of these icons, which had been wrongly showing the cross-platform logo for players who were in fact on the same machine.

Enabling or disabling cross-platform play

Crossplay is active by default, and a warning is displayed to flag this. It can be disabled in the settings, which makes sense in two cases: annoying latency with a geographically spread-out group, or wanting to limit random encounters in public lobbies.

However, keep in mind what this costs you. Turning off crossplay mechanically reduces the number of visible lobbies and cuts you off from friends on other platforms. For a session with friends, there's no reason to disable it: the lobby code is more than enough to filter out intruders.

Voice chat: what the June patches fixed

This is the area developers have spent the most time on since the console launch, and it's crucial in a game where players deliberately split up in identical corridors. Voice chat has been functional across all platforms since May 28, but it took two waves of patches to make it reliable.

Patch 1.3.1 (build 3597), released on June 5, 2026, fixed the loss of voice communication occurring after a random amount of time or during level transitions, the complete absence of sound when plugging in a headset mid-game, as well as two issues with the input gain setting: a volume level higher than intended, and the ability to set it to zero.

Patch 1.3.2, from June 15, 2026, tackled four additional bugs: microphone echo in push-to-talk mode, loss of voice chat right after the initial loading, silence from the last eliminated player once sent back to the lobby, and a specific case where one of the three players in a session could no longer be heard.

Practical takeaway: if your voice chat is still glitching, first check that everyone is running 1.3.2. A console left in sleep mode can very well be running an older version without its owner realizing it.

Moderation: muting, kicking, blocking, reporting

The May 28 update brought a proper set of tools, essential now that strangers can join a public lobby from any platform. From the lobby menu as well as from the in-game settings, you can select a player to mute their microphone, mute their text chat, kick them, block them, or report them.

The list of blocked players remains accessible from the main menu or from the lobby, and you can remove someone from it at any time. A profanity filter now applies to both text chat and usernames. The scoreboard, meanwhile, has been moved into the in-game settings.

One detail that matters in a mixed squad: text chat is PC-only. If even one member of the group is playing on console, all communication has to go through voice. Plan for a backup Discord server rather than relying on the built-in chat.

What's still broken or missing as of August 6, 2026

• Ping is no longer displayed in the room list. It was removed with 1.3.2 because the value shown was inaccurate and caused confusion; the developers have announced its return once the cause has been identified. In the meantime, there's no way to sort public rooms by latency, which makes the room code all the more useful.
• The HDR setting has been removed since May 28 due to a malfunction, and will be reactivated after a fix.
• Frame-rate-related sensitivity was still, as of June 15, among the issues under investigation. On a machine capped at a low frame rate, aiming can feel inconsistent compared to that of a PC teammate.

Conversely, a welcome safety net arrived with the opening to consoles: auto-save triggers during level transitions and at certain respawn points, with a dedicated icon shown right from the start of the match. In crossplay, where a console disconnect remains more common than a PC one, this is what saves you from having to start all over from Level 0.

The co-op achievements that crossplay finally unlocks

Gathering four players available at the same time was the main obstacle to a handful of purely co-op achievements. Here are their exact titles in the French client, which translates the difficulty labels well:

• Lot de participation — finish the game in multiplayer on Easy difficulty.
• Escouade — finish the game in multiplayer on Normal difficulty.
• Effort de groupe — finish the game in multiplayer on Hard difficulty.
• Cauchemar — finish the game with four players on Nightmare difficulty. This is the only one that requires a full squad, and therefore the one that benefits the most from the opening to consoles.

Note in passing that a bug fixed on June 5 allowed players to trigger the ultimate ending via the arcade machine without having obtained all the required endings beforehand. This shortcut no longer works: the hunt for endings is now done by the book.

Vocabulary: what the French version translates, and what it leaves in English

The game offers a French interface and subtitles, but only English voice acting. More importantly, level names are not translated, and that's good news for crossplay: you can coordinate with players of other languages without any ambiguity whatsoever. The achievement descriptions in the French client confirm the titles Level 0, Habitable Zone, The Hub, Pipe Dreams, Electrical Station, Abandoned Office, Terror Hotel, Lights Out, Thalassophobia, Cave System, Poolrooms, Snackrooms, Grassrooms, Death Slides, Level Fun, and The End.

So don't translate these names: announcing "the hotel level" instead of Terror Hotel will only slow everyone down. On the other hand, the difficulty levels are indeed localized into French — Facile, Normal, Difficile, Cauchemar — just like the achievement titles.

One last warning, since confusion is constant in searches: Escape the Backrooms is not Backrooms: Escape Together. These are two distinct games, from two different studios, with absolutely no compatibility link between them. A room code from one will never work in the other.

The steps to follow for a mixed session that starts quickly

Assign the host based on their connection, not their platform. Create the lobby, enable code masking if someone is recording, then share the code through an external channel. Do a vocal roll call before leaving The Hub: that's where muted mics get caught, not in the middle of Level Fun. Finally, for a first four-player run where some folks are still getting used to the controller, stick to Normal — Nightmare mode can wait until the group has memorized the exits.

No new level is expected in the immediate future: the publisher stated on May 5 that it was no longer publishing roadmaps and that additional levels would arrive after console versions stabilize, drawing on feedback from the community. Until then, crossplay is the real playable novelty, and the best way to get the most out of the thirty-odd levels already in place.