Microsoft is adding support for mods to games on the Xbox Store on PC. As spotted by Jez Corden of Windows Central, in the Store page for select games you can enable mods support, and once it"s enabled, it also provides a link to the mods folder for that game. The report mentions that Into the Breach is one of the games that supports this, and we found that Phantasy Star Online 2 also supports it.
As noted in the report, this only means that it"s possible to apply mods to compatible games. There"s no structure yet on the Xbox Store that allows you to get mods more easily, so you"ll need to find them elsewhere, such as on Nexusmods. It"s certainly possible that Microsoft will bring this capability later on.
Aside from some of the performance issues that the Microsoft Store has, the lack of mod support has been one of the recurring complaints with Microsoft"s distribution platform. Platforms such as Steam allow players to make unofficial modifications to their games, which makes it a more desirable destination for some, so this is a notable step in the right direction.
Aside from mod support, there are some smaller changes in the latest version of the Xbox app, starting with the app"s architecture moving to React Native instead of Electron. There"s also some new acrylic blur in the downloads panel, plus a new link to Xbox Game Pass perks on the landing page. Recently, a new Xbox Store design was spotted by some users, and while it was seen running on Windows 10, it"s currently unclear whether it will come to PCs or if it will be exclusive to the Xbox consoles.