Can Steam players play with Xbox Gamepass users?

[Blundering Rookie]

Hey y'all, I have a friend who owns the game through Xbox gamepass on their computer. I play on Steam, will we be able to play together? Thanks!

[Chibbity]

No.

Only Windows Live store, and Xbox console crossplay together.

[Phoenix7786]

And the devs have stated this issue was on Microsoft's end.

[Derpykat5]

Originally posted by Phoenix7786:

And the devs have stated this issue was on Microsoft's end.

Not Microsoft specifically, but it is at least partially the fault of the platform the game is released on.

DRG uses their platform's networking backend (Steam servers for Steam, Microsoft Online for Xbox and Windows) to connect players to each other. This makes the peer-to-peer hosting vastly easier and simpler since they aren't reinventing the wheel here, but the downside is that Steam and Microsoft (and Playstation, etc.) don't like sharing userbases, so their services don't communicate with each other at all. That means crossplay is basically impossible unless they drop the backends and write their own netcode, which is just not happening.

Then there's also the issue that consoles require a verification process for any and all updates pushed to a game. Steam users get their updates when they release, but all other platforms (including Windows Store since it's basically just a console market but on PC) get the updates a week later at least. That means either every time a new patch releases, crossplay breaks for a week, or feedback on every single update is delayed by a week (and Steam is the only platform that allows Experimental Branch functionality).