Microsoft has officially announced that the Xbox (Beta) app for Windows 10 PCs is now enabling support for mods in games that choose to do so. The feature was spotted last week, but Microsoft has now made it official, along with a short list of supported games.
As previously reported, Microsoft isn"t offering its own mod distribution platform, and instead, it"s using a "bring-your-own-mod" approach, so you can download your mods elsewhere and apply them to supported games. The company has also provided a list of games that are available through the Microsoft Store that already support mods, including DiRT Rally 2.0, Farming Simulator 17, FTL: Faster Than Light, Into the Breach, and MudRunner. Microsoft says it"s working with its partners to bring mod support for more games over time, and it looks like the free-to-play Phantasy Star Online 2 already supports them as well.
There"s also a video guiding you through the process of enabling and using mods in a game of your choice:
In addition to mod support, the latest version of the Xbox (Beta) app moves on from Electron to React Native, another change that had been previously reported. While it was already known that it would offer better performance, Microsoft has specified that memory usage should be down to about a third of the previous version of the app.
Additionally, Microsoft is also working to improve download speeds for Microsoft Store games on PC, and some regions may already be seeing those benefits. It may take some time for them to be more broadly available, though.