After a promise that it would happen, and some testing late last year, Gears of War 4 finally has cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs through Xbox Live.

Social Quickplay is now part of the cross-play list, developer The Coalition said in the announcement, with the first few months being a test period to compare data withe the test weekend. However, Core and Competitive will remain platform separate "to ensure our Ranked experiences are as closely matched and competitive as possible." The team will look at other Core and Competitive options for Windows 10 players going forward.

The test weekend, which happened late last year, gave rise to some interesting stats:

• More than 750,000 matches were played
• There were more than 115,000 unique participants – with Xbox One the most popular by a wide 91/9 split
• However, Windows 10 players played more matches on average - 11.2 vs. 6.2 for Xbox One.
• More than 90% of all matches during the weekend included a mix of Windows 10 and Xbox One players
• Windows 10 and Xbox players had closely matched results when comparing Average KD, Score and Kills per match based on skill ratings
• The quality of matches improved for both Xbox and Windows 10 users – social lobbies had a higher average user count, and players completed 95% of all social matches entered vs 90% prior to Cross-play Weekend.

The Gears of War 4 update 3 hit earlier this month, adding some classic maps and rage-quit penalties for poor sports.