As we move closer to the next generation of consoles, cross-play (also known as cross-platform play) is becoming an increasingly essential feature for online multiplayer games. It allows players to come together and play online multiplayer regardless of the platform, thus offering solidarity to communities as it avoids confining players to their individual platforms.
It's a particularly welcome addition to games that have a smaller fan base. Racing games, in particular, do not have the popularity of shooting games for example, and rely on small, dedicated player bases to secure the future of their online communities. This is where cross play can have an extremely positive impact on a game and maintain an online community for years to come.
In the past, Codemasters racing games have not been able to offer cross play, as the trend to bring it to games has become a very recent trend.
Unfortunately, F1 2020 does not contain any form of cross play. There is no in-game social system that would otherwise be able to support the cross-play feature to allow friends to play together on separate systems. This means that if you want to play with friends, you will need to own a copy of the game and the same platform as them. This could be something added later, but Codemasters has yet to mention any plans to implement it in the game.
There are also no current plans for a next-gen version of the game, which means cross-play between generations is also not a possibility, although that may change as we get closer to the release of new consoles.
