Microsoft said Thursday it is preparing to offer gamers the ability to save PC games downloaded from its Xbox store to a location of their choice, allowing greater access to modify them. It’s a freedom that other game stores have offered for years.
This is a small but important change for PC gamers. Currently, if you download a game from the Xbox Game Store on PC (or through Microsoft’s Game Pass), Microsoft will allow you to store the game in a specific folder on the local hard drive or SSD. This area is locked down by Microsoft with its own directory name and file structure.
Xbox Insiders will be able to test out a new update to the PC app that will allow users to choose their own file directory name to store games, making them easier to find. The file folder and game files will be unlocked, which means users will be able to apply mods – third-party patches that change how the game looks and plays.
Microsoft has struggled with the mod issue before. In 2020, Microsoft got into modding Game Pass games through the Xbox app, but they only offered a limited selection of games. Unlocking the installation folder to allow modifications seems much more in line with the traditional PC experience and that offered by additional game stores like Steam or Epic.
What’s not entirely clear is whether you’ll be able to download Xbox games via PC and store them on an external drive. In an announcement video hosted by Megan Spurr, Community Manager for Xbox Game Pass, and Jason Beaumont, Partner Director of Experiences with Xbox, Beaumont showed an example where the user had the option to choose any folder on the VS : drive, the internal hard drive of a PC.
Since games often place the greatest demands on PC storage, being able to store those games on an external drive is important, especially with gaming PC manufacturers saving money by limiting storage space. storage at around 512 GB. Steam and Epic allow you to store and run games from an external drive. We asked Microsoft for clarification on this last point. We’ll update the story when we get back to you.
Remember that this feature is only available to Xbox Insiders on PC. According to Microsoft, this feature will arrive “soon”. If you want to become an Xbox Insider on PC, you can download the app here and help Microsoft test out these new features.
Below we have included Microsoft’s announcement video. Do not hesitate to quickly access the corresponding announcement.
As editor of PCWorld, Mark focuses on, among other things, Microsoft news and chip technology. He has previously written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK and ReadWrite.
