ReCore on Xbox Game Pass also runs on Windows 10 PC, thanks to Play Anywhere

Facts first. In November 2017, Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s subscription service nicknamed the “Netflix of games,” offered more than 100 games for Xbox One. And users started reporting something curious: ReCore, one of the catalog’s titles, could also be downloaded and played on a Windows 10 PC with the same subscription.

Translating the jargon: ReCore is part of Xbox Play Anywhere, a program in which a digital purchase is valid for both versions of the game, the Xbox One and Windows 10 ones, with shared progress between them. ReCore was in fact the first game in the program, released in September 2016. In the case of Game Pass, all you had to do was enter the Windows Store with the subscriber’s Xbox account and download the game on the computer.

This was no accident. When ReCore Definitive Edition came out, on August 29, 2017, it was already presented as the first Xbox Game Pass game to also come to Windows 10. The edition brought higher resolution, HDR support, the new adventure “Eye of Obsidian,” the T8-NK robot and performance improvements, delivered free to those who already owned the game.

In practice, this meant the next Play Anywhere games that entered Game Pass could follow the same path. It was a first, still timid, step toward a Game Pass that did not depend on the console. Also read how Phil Spencer explained the choice of Xbox Game Pass games.

What came next

The numbers tell the evolution. On January 23, 2018, Microsoft announced that all new Xbox One exclusives from its studios would enter Game Pass on launch day, starting with Sea of Thieves. In June 2019, at E3, Xbox Game Pass for PC debuted in beta, with more than 100 games, along with the Ultimate plan, which combined console, PC and Xbox Live Gold. What looked like a behind-the-scenes trick in 2017 became the center of the strategy.

Source: Microsoft.