Microsoft has revealed that the Xbox Play Anywhere program launches on September 13 for Xbox One and Windows 10.
The new scheme (announced at E3 last month) allows you simply purchase a participating game once, and then it’s yours to play across Xbox One or a Windows 10 PC, with save files and achievements carrying back and forth between platforms.
Microsoft intends to bring all of its first party games to Windows 10 and Xbox as part of this plan, with ReCore as the first confirmed release.
ReCore will later be joined by the likes of Forza Horizon 3, Gears of War 4, and State of Decay 2. In short, if Microsoft published it, you can probably expect it to be cross-play.
As corporate vice president Yusuf Mehdi writes on the Windows blog:
Every new title published from Microsoft Studios will support Xbox Play Anywhere and will be easily accessible in the Windows Store.
If you’re intrigued, you’ll need both the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, and the summer Xbox One update for the console. Xbox Store games will include a handy Play Anywhere logo to demonstrate that they work with the scheme,
Just for fun, here’s every supported title so far:
- Gears of War 4
- Forza Horizon 3
- ReCore
- Sea of Thieves
- Halo Wars 2
- Scalebound
- Killer Instinct Season 3
- State of Decay 2
- Ark: Survival Evolved
- Cuphead
- We Happy Few
- Crackdown 3
This means Microsoft is essentially killing the Xbox exclusive, but it’s all part of a larger scheme to unite PC and console gaming – Let’s see if it pays off.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.