At some point, Microsoft needs to open up mod support on Game Pass PC for ALL titles on the service

[Earvin Infinity]

Especially from their own studios and not just a game by game basis. As of June 2020, here are the official mod supported Game Pass PC titles:

• DiRT Rally 2.0
• Farming Simulator 17
• FTL: Faster Than Light
• Into the Breach
• MudRunner

"Just buy the game on Steam if you want to mod your game."

Well, there are still some uncertainties right now as to which games will be on other platforms. Microsoft can easily just say that future titles will be on PC for Game Pass only, so could you imagine a non-existent modding community for Elder Scrolls and Fallout? Just a thought.

 

[vestan]

Agreed, especially with Starfield on the horizon. I think they will tbh. Game Pass on Steam would be the fucking dream though. Workshop support, way better launcher, Steam achievements etc. Would never happen unfortunately.

 

[daninthemix]

They need to move away from UWP. The reason I stopped GamePass and e.g. played Dead Rising 4 on Steam instead is I want to be able to choose Exclusive Fullscreen and not be forced into Borderless Windowed mode, etc.

PC gaming is about choice. Always has been.

 

[Scottoest]

I think they were working towards opening up Game Pass installs so they could be more easily modded. With Bethesda's games this is going to be a 100% necessity though. The mod community is a big part of what Bethesda's games are what they are.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

It's not part of their vision. If they wanted unrestricted file access like other stores on PC have, they would have done so already. It really sucks and kills the value of Game Pass on PC.

Microsoft Store is a built in walled garden inside Windows 10 with console-like limitations. That's the future of PC gaming if you let Microsoft take over.

 

[Iyagovos]

Making mod support mandatory to be on Gamepass with drive lots of devs away from it. I agree it's important but this wouldn't fly

 

[Deleted member 8468]

Definitely.

As much as I love GamePass it feels bad to have all these game install folders I can't easily interact with. UWP needs to go.

 

[Issen]

I agree it's pretty damn important and should've been done already. The way games work filesystem-wise via the Xbox App is just... Ugh.

That's why I don't buy games on the Xbox App. I just use it for Game Pass (which admittedly is fantastic) and buy them on Steam when I want to keep them.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

Making mod support mandatory to be on Gamepass with drive lots of devs away from it. I agree it's important but this wouldn't fly

Click to shrink...

"Mod support" is part of every single store on PC that is not the Microsoft Store. Microsoft is the only one that has file access blockers.

 

[Oreiller]

That won't happen as long as Game Pass uses UWP. Even getting my controler to work is sometimes a challenge with these.

 

[Trey]

I agree it's pretty damn important and should've been done already. The way games work filesystem-wise via the Xbox App is just... Ugh.

That's why I don't buy games on the Xbox App. I just use it for Game Pass (which admittedly is fantastic) and buy them on Steam when I want to keep them.

Click to shrink...

Yep. Same.

 

[bing]

They already allowed modding on Xbox. I'm sure that's in the pipeline. Also, Phil Spencer said they would never create Game Pass exclusives.

 

[antispin]

Isn't this planned? I remember reading about mod support coming to GP. EDIT: OP meant *all* games, my bad then, apologies.

 

[Ojli]

I'm sure there are at least one person working on it, trying to make it work for all games while keeping the file structure as is

 

[Issen]

Isn't this planned? I remember reading about mod support coming to GP.

Click to shrink...

Mod support is opt-in for developers.

 

[antispin]

Mod support is opt-in for developers.

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Yeah, my bad. Didn't quite parse the OT before posting.

 

[Outlaw Torn]

They need to move away from UWP. The reason I stopped GamePass and e.g. played Dead Rising 4 on Steam instead is I want to be able to choose Exclusive Fullscreen and not be forced into Borderless Windowed mode, etc.

PC gaming is about choice. Always has been.

Click to shrink...

They have already moved away from UWP on Game Pass. Most new third party games and every first party game since Gears 5 is no longer using UWP.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

They already allowed modding on Xbox. I'm sure that's in the pipeline. Also, Phil Spencer said they would never create Game Pass exclusives.

Click to shrink...

This made me think we might be seeing Paid Mods Attempt 3, electric boogaloo. What can you do when the main way to play won't let you download and install mods from your own source.

 

[daninthemix]

They have already moved away from UWP on Game Pass. Most new third party games and every first party game since Gears 5 is no longer using UWP.

Click to shrink...

Oh wow really? I didn't know that. I literally quit GP for the reasons I said - certain games only had borderless window mode (I presume so they could work as UWP apps).

 

[Outlaw Torn]

Oh wow really? I didn't know that. I literally quit GP for the reasons I said - certain games only had borderless window mode (I presume so they could work as UWP apps).

Click to shrink...

All new first party PC games have Exclusive Fullscreen (Halo MCC, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Minecraft Dungeons, Grounded, Flight Simulator, etc) since UWP is no longer used. Any pre-2019 Microsoft game still uses UWP though, except for Age of Empires DE which was updated to no longer use it last year.
Microsoft has allowed third party developers to not use UWP on the Windows Store since Game Pass PC was created in June 2019, so the only UWP games added to Game Pass PC now are if they were previously on the Windows Store prior to June 2019 (for example the recently added Resident Evil 7) or if the the developer chooses to use it (mostly Indie Xbox Play Anywhere games).

 

[Falchion]

Couldn't agree more, especially with Bethesda titles coming to the service.

 

[BAD]

"Mod support" is part of every single store on PC that is not the Microsoft Store. Microsoft is the only one that has file access blockers.

Click to shrink...

But for Game Pass isn't the issue that the game file needs to know you don't own it, and thus needs to protect the files from losing the subscription control over the game? Are they afraid PC players will mess with games to find a way to leverage Game Pass as a way for easy to keep game files?

 

[Tagyhag]

Yep, Gamepass is amazing but mod support is so important to me that I actively would rather buy a game that costs more on Steam than play it on gamepass if it's one that I want to play modded.

The way every single file is hidden is so annoying.

 

[Deleted member 56752]

They have to work on other things first like an option to stop auto update downloads

 

[RF Switch]

Pretty sure this is the goal

 

[sangreal]

Flight simulator supports mods too

There has never been anything preventing games from supporting mods of the developer wants to. it's only writing directly to the install folder that was not possible so mods that replace the exe, dlls, etc weren't possible. Games can load mods/config from appdata or anywhere else. Flight simulator does this for basically the entire game

 

[WadeIt0ut]

"Mod support" is part of every single store on PC that is not the Microsoft Store. Microsoft is the only one that has file access blockers.

Click to shrink...

Can I mod games on EA Play that I don't own?

 

[Hamster Plugin]

Can I mod games on EA Play that I don't own?

Click to shrink...

Yes. Nothing is stopping you. EA uses Steam style "launch through launcher" DRM where the launcher checks your license but the game files are fully accessible.

This is also the case with Uplay+.

 

[StereoVSN]

I agree it's pretty damn important and should've been done already. The way games work filesystem-wise via the Xbox App is just... Ugh.

That's why I don't buy games on the Xbox App. I just use it for Game Pass (which admittedly is fantastic) and buy them on Steam when I want to keep them.

Click to shrink...

That's what I use it for as well. It's basically to check out games, play some smaller indie titles and such, fool around till they appear on Steam or get patched up. Then I'll grab the game on Steam if I see myself playing for a longer time. It kind of all works out.

Hell, I bought Halo MCC on Steam vs just playing it for free on GamePass as I think the performance was better. It probably wasn't the case but I could swear looking at frame rates and stuttering it just functioned better on PC. Plus mods.

Wasteland, CK3, and so on are all eventually going to be bought on Steam. Definitely same for Bethesda games although I "think" you can mod them through Bethesda.net, which is not nearly enough.

 

[leng jai]

Imagine if Elder Scrolls 6 was stuck in Windows Store with zero mid support.

 

[Rosebud]

I really want easy access to save files. I don't play huge games like CK3 on GP because I want to transfer the save to Steam later.

 

[Typhoon20]

Good title and constructive criticism.

I'm sure (I hope) it's on their to do list. They still have many stuff to sort out before that'll be the next priority on their list though.
Maybe in 5-6 years they'll look into it. Once Game pass truly settles in.

 

[Chief Malik]

Especially from their own studios and not just a game by game basis. As of June 2020, here are the official mod supported Game Pass PC titles:

• DiRT Rally 2.0
• Farming Simulator 17
• FTL: Faster Than Light
• Into the Breach
• MudRunner

"Just buy the game on Steam if you want to mod your game."

Well, there are still some uncertainties right now as to which games will be on other platforms. Microsoft can easily just say that future titles will be on PC for Game Pass only, so could you imagine a non-existent modding community for Elder Scrolls and Fallout? Just a thought.

Click to shrink...

Halo and PSO2 as well

 

[StereoVSN]

Imagine if Elder Scrolls 6 was stuck in Windows Store with zero mid support.

Click to shrink...

That's unlikely since they allow mods for Xbox. However, it will be stuck with crappy mod support in that case which with Bethesda games is a bad thing since a lot of times you want to use 3rd party utilities and mod managers to properly install/order/sort and clean the mods.

 

[starpower]

halo mcc has some wacky mods already I reckon

 

[Pargon]

Yeah, it's awful having to play games in 16:9 when the Steam version has mods for ultra-wide displays.
And they could do with improving their controller support too. I had to play through Tell Me Why with a keyboard and mouse because neither my DualShock 4 or Steam Controller work with it.
Even Apple supports both of these controllers - and not just in games. I can control the Apple TV interface with a Steam Controller.

They need to move away from UWP. The reason I stopped GamePass and e.g. played Dead Rising 4 on Steam instead is I want to be able to choose Exclusive Fullscreen and not be forced into Borderless Windowed mode, etc.

PC gaming is about choice. Always has been.

Click to shrink...

UWP uses flip-mode presentation, not borderless windowed mode.
This is superior to full-screen exclusive mode in every way except that it doesn't change the output resolution if you're wanting to downsample.
It's a massive improvement if you have a G-Sync display, since windowed-mode G-Sync barely works at all.

All new first party PC games have Exclusive Fullscreen (Halo MCC, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Minecraft Dungeons, Grounded, Flight Simulator, etc) since UWP is no longer used.

Click to shrink...

Hopefully "borderless" is actually flip-mode then, and not actually the old borderless mode.
I remember that being a big problem for Ori 2, with people disabling G-Sync because it was smoother - which should never be the case.

 

[mutantmagnet]

If anything I would expect ms to attempt a variation of Bethesda's paid mods initiative.

 

[Stormy_One_Kenobi]

I wonder if they will try to repurpose whatever Bethesda used as a repository for mods? The stuff that allowed you to get the mods into the Xbox? Like their own steam workshop style thing?

 

[Alvis]

Making mod support mandatory to be on Gamepass with drive lots of devs away from it. I agree it's important but this wouldn't fly

Click to shrink...

Allow me to make a list of PC stores that don't support mods for every single game:
- Microsoft Store / Game Pass

"Mod support" just means allowing the user to modify the game files. This is not a luxury: being able to see and modify every single file that resides on my storage drives is a basic expected "feature" in a personal computer.

 

[packy17]

Won't and can't happen until they drop the UWP wrapper.

 

[Rental]

Yeah we'll see pay for mods is about what I expect for the Bethesda titles. Some new wave gaas thing they will see if it catches on.

 

[Iyagovos]

Allow me to make a list of PC stores that don't support mods for every single game:
- Microsoft Store / Game Pass

"Mod support" just means allowing the user to modify the game files. This is not a luxury: being able to see and modify every single file that resides on my storage drives is a basic expected "feature" in a personal computer.

Click to shrink...

Right, like I said I absolutely agree that it's expected and I want it too.

 

[MrBob]

I haven't checked in awhile but are game files basically hidden still? That part definitely needs to be fixed. Agree with others that Ms has way too many restrictions on gamepass titles so if I'm going to buy a game, I'll do it on steam.