How to play and troubleshoot Crossy Road multiplayer on the Apple TV

By Serenity Caldwell
last updated

One of the big selling points of the new Apple TV is games—and multiplayer games, to boot. Popular iOS app Crossy Road launched a multiplayer mode alongside the new Apple TV, allowing two players to pit pixel-creature against pixel-creature on the big screen.

If you're scratching your head a bit trying to activate this mode, you're not alone. Luckily, we've put together a quick tutorial on setting up the multiplayer madness so you can pixel-jump your way to freedom—or destruction.

How to turn on Crossy Road multiplayer on the Apple TV

  1. Open Crossy Road on your TV.
  2. Go to the character picker, then scroll to the far left for multiplayer mode. (You'll need at least one character unlocked to open the character picker; if you don't have any unlocked, just play a solo game or two!)
  3. On your iOS device, download and open Crossy Road, and tap the arrow in the bottom right corner.
  4. Tap the game controller icon.
  5. You should be connected after a few moments; you'll see a P2 or P1 in the top right corner to signify the multiplayer connection.
  6. Have fun playing with pixels!

How to Troubleshoot Crossy Road multiplayer

Can't get your iPhone to recognize Crossy Road's multiplayer mode? Try this troubleshooting tip.

  1. Go to the Home screen on the Apple TV.
  2. Double-press the Home button on the Apple TV to enter the multitasking interface.
  3. Scroll to the Crossy Road icon and swipe up to force quit.
  4. Press the Home button to return to the Home screen.
  5. Re-launch Crossy Road and follow the instructions above.
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Serenity Caldwell
Serenity Caldwell

Serenity was formerly the Managing Editor at iMore, and now works for Apple. She's been talking, writing about, and tinkering with Apple products since she was old enough to double-click. In her spare time, she sketches, sings, and in her secret superhero life, plays roller derby. Follow her on Twitter @settern.

16 Comments
  • Looks like idiot game Sent from the iMore App
  • Each to their own, but I gotta say - I don’t like it either and I hope this isn’t the general standard of games we can expect.
  • It's really addictive if you start to play, but I have to agree. Crossy Road is the worst. Besides the never-ending adverts, and the fact that you can't even pay to get rid of them, it's poorly coded at best. For a super-popular game that's sold as many units as it has, that's just atrocious. It shows that the people behind it don't even care. The video stalls and stutters if you play it for too long. If two different sound events happen at the same time, you only hear one. The problems are endless but while I'm listing them, I'll say that it's sexist as well. There are only a few female characters compared to dozens of male characters and the female characters are things like "movie star" and "schoolgirl." Ugh. Worst of all, it has an error common to old, "never-been-updated" games which is easy to fix. That is, that when you start the game, if you aren't signed in to Game Centre, it throws up the Game Centre log-in screen, which takes about two seconds to wait for and dismiss. Every time. For people who don't use Game Centre (a very sizeable group), this is maddening. Almost as maddening as their adverts. About every five or six times it does this, it actually *automatically* logs you in to Game Centre (!) without your knowledge, which is pretty outrageous. Despicable. Imagine a bunch of Aussie men sitting around drinking Fosters and shooting Kangaroos for fun and that's likely the type of people behind it.
  • WOW! You claim that the game is sexist and then make a remark like that at the end?? You're unbelievable. Sent from the iMore App
  • Aussie men don't drink Fosters. Fosters is a joke that Australians played on the rest of the world. Sent from the iMore App
  • Mate you don't even have to pay to disable adverts. You can disable them for free from the Settings.
  • Really? Sexist! I gotta disagree there Posted via the iMore App for Android
  • Looks like idiot comment.
  • I cannot seem to get it to work. I updated the app on my phone, and followed the instructions, but the phone app never gets past "Searching" when I choose the control icon. The AppleTV is on the screen with the 2 player choices. Originally I thought it was because the AppleTV was plugged into Ethernet, not Wi-Fi, but it still doesn't work after unplugging and connecting to my network via WiFi.
  • I have run into this problem too with Apple TV on Ethernet and phone on wifi. Even putting Apple TV on wifi did not work until I forced quit the app on the tv and iPhone and restarted. The Beat Sports app seems more reliable on the multi player and does not care if phones are on wifi and Apple TV is in Ethernet. It is much more reliable at finding the secondary controllers in my experience. Serenity - should Crossy Road multiplayer work with phones on wifi and appletv on Ethernet if the are on the same network subnet? Sent from the iMore App
  • Believe so! Crossy Road has a multiplayer bug right now. Force quitting the app on the ATV seems to do it.
  • I finally got it to work, but force quitting the app (on both AppleTV and iPhone) did not help. It finally connected after I had eventually restarted the phone, the AEBS router, and finally the AppleTV itself - then it finally connected. Finally.
  • BTW, once I got it working with the AppleTV on Wifi, I connected the AppleTv back to Ethernet, and it continued to work. So it will work on Ethernet.
  • I'm sad that how to troubleshoot a specific Apple TV game is the top article.
  • Latest article, not top article! We've got a bunch of good stuff coming down the pipeline for you, so stay tuned.
  • True. iMore's really addressing the hard-hitting and newsworthy Apple news latley. </sarcasm>