Console Crossplay Beta: What 7 Days to Die Server Hosts Need to Know

The whisper network finally came true: Telltale and The Fun Pimps opened a small crossplay beta that lets Xbox and PlayStation testers hop onto curated PC realms. For years players begged for shared saves, and now we are juggling whitelists, controller aim assist debates, and latency charts. I figured it would be helpful to document how we prep 7 Days to Die hosting for mixed-platform squads now, before the beta expands and every admin scrambles at once.

How the beta works today

Right now the crossplay pool is tiny—think dozens, not thousands. Console testers sign an NDA-lite form, submit their gamer tags, and receive IPs for two or three partner servers. The builds they run look like Alpha 22 under the hood, but the networking stack layers extra encryption and voice chat hooks. That means hosts must respect slightly different connection rules even though the gameplay feels familiar. Consider this phase a dress rehearsal for the inevitable public release.

Step one: Get your identity and whitelist flow in order

Console IDs do not look like Steam64 IDs, so your old whitelisting scripts probably reject them. We built a small intake form that asks for Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam names, then stores them in a table keyed by Discord ID. When a beta player wants access we press one button and our panel pushes the correct identifiers into the server config. If you do this manually, double-check capitalization, because one typo produces confusing “Connection rejected” errors that players inevitably blame on lag.

Step two: Revisit mods and QoL packs

Crossplay clients only understand server-side mods. Anything that once relied on SDX or client asset bundles is automatically off the table. We curated a shortlist of QoL tweaks—stack size fixes, muted trader voice lines, lightweight HUD changes—and rebuilt them using pure server scripting. The upside is a leaner codebase; the downside is you must wean players off custom UIs they loved. Communicate early. Share patch notes. Let people grieve their lost backpack mod and then show them the new streamlined setup.

Latency expectations

Controllers hide some lag but not all of it. Through testing we found that console players notice rubber banding once ping exceeds 80 ms. That forced us to shuffle regions so North American console squads land on Chicago instead of Dallas, and EU squads land on Frankfurt with Warsaw failover. We also cap each crossplay shard at 20 concurrent players until we gather more data. Smaller populations mean we can keep tickrate high without giving up the “affordable 7 Days to Die hosting” promise.

Voice chat and social glue

Mixing PC Discord regulars with console party chat can get messy. Our approach is to embed a crossplay onboarding page into the MOTD. It includes links to our Discord, instructions for joining via phone, and a code of conduct. We also added a lightweight relay bot that mirrors console text chat into Discord so PC admins see grief reports in real time. The more you bridge the social gap, the more forgiving players become when beta quirks pop up.

Security and DDoS mitigation

Sadly, publicizing “Console players welcome” attracts trolls. Within 48 hours of launching our beta shard somebody tried saturating the IP with junk traffic. Thankfully we already route traffic through DDoS-hardened endpoints, but the incident reminded us to document recovery steps. At minimum, make sure your provider supports always-on mitigation and keep a warm standby world you can swap to if the main one goes dark. Nothing ruins goodwill faster than console players setting aside time to test and getting kicked before nightfall.

Controller-friendly base design tips

Crossplay is as much about UX as tech. Console players struggle with the same precision tasks PC veterans do while using a trackpad. Encourage communities to add wider walkways, gentler ramps, and more obvious signage. When we host events we literally paint arrows on the ground with bright blocks so nobody wanders into dart traps by accident. Small touches like that make mixed-platform raids feel coordinated instead of chaotic.

Monitoring stack

We treat each crossplay realm like a mini product. It gets its own metrics board showing CPU, RAM, tickrate, bandwidth, and player joins segmented by platform. Anytime tickrate dips below 18 for longer than one minute an alert fires into Slack. We also log every kick message; if we see a pattern tied to a particular console build we forward it to the devs. This level of instrumentation sounds excessive, but it lets us prove that issues are beta bugs rather than host negligence.

Stories from early adopters

One of our favorite groups is a dad playing on Xbox with his two teenagers on PlayStation and their cousin on PC. They had spent years trading videos of their separate worlds, never able to share loot. Watching them meet inside the same trader outpost was surprisingly emotional. We heard similar stories from streamers who can finally invite console viewers to community nights. Those moments make the extra whitelist tickets worth it.

What to prepare for next

The devs hinted that the next phase will loosen the NDA and allow user-provided servers into the pool. That means public listings, more grief attempts, and higher expectations. Start drafting support macros now. Build a knowledge base page explaining how to submit console clips when reporting cheaters. Line up community moderators across time zones. The beta is quiet enough that you can still experiment; use the breathing room wisely.

Crossplay readiness checklist

If you are overwhelmed, start with this minimalist checklist:

1. Collect platform IDs via form and sync them automatically.
2. Audit your mod list—remove anything that is not purely server-side.
3. Create a region map and keep ping targets under 80 ms.
4. Write a one-page etiquette guide that consoles see on login.
5. Set up alerts for tickrate dips, bandwidth spikes, and mass kicks.

Completing those five steps already puts you ahead of most hosts.

Final encouragement

Crossplay has been the biggest wish list item in every 7DTD survey I have seen. Hosting it responsibly requires more paperwork, more automation, and more empathy, but the payoff is undeniable. When you invest in tooling today, you are not just future-proofing your 7 Days to Die servers; you are giving far-flung friends a shared apocalypse to laugh about. If you want help testing, migrating, or simply sanity-checking your plan, ping us. We are in the trenches learning right alongside you.