You Can Now Pre-Order the First Xbox Play Anywhere Games

Microsoft announced today that you can now pre-order the first wave of Xbox Play Anywhere game titles from the Windows Store. These are the games that let you move between devices and play on both Xbox One and Windows 10.

The announcement came, curiously, via a tweet.

Starting today, you can pre-order #Xbox Play Anywhere digital titles from Windows Store.

But we’ve known this day was coming. Microsoft first announced Xbox Play Anywhere during E3 in June, noting that all future Microsoft Studios games bought digitally would entitle the buyer to a copy on both Xbox One and Windows 10. But it’s not just play rights you’re getting: Xbox Play Anywhere titles are integrated between the two platforms, too. As Microsoft notes, you can pick up where you left off on Xbox One or a Windows 10 PC, bringing all your saves, game add-ons, and achievements with you.

While Xbox Play Anywhere seems too good to be true, there’s only been one minor hiccup so far: In July, Microsoft quietly backtracked on its promise to support Xbox Play Anywhere on “every new title published from Microsoft Studios.” Instead, the promise changed to “Every new title published from Microsoft Studios that [Microsoft] showed onstage at E3 this year will support Xbox Play Anywhere.” In other words, some future Microsoft games my not support this functionality. (Think: Halo Next.)

But whatever: There are still some pretty great games. Here’s the list Microsoft promised at E3:

Ark: Survival Evolved
Crackdown 3
Cuphead
Forza Horizon 3
Gears of War 4
Halo Wars 2
Killer Instinct Season 3
ReCore
Scalebound
Sea of Thieves
State of Decay 2
We Happy Few

Today’s tweet links to a page on Xbox.com that claims that only three of these games are currently available for pre-order: Forza Horizon 3 (due September 27), Gears of War 4 (October 11), and ReCore (September 13). And sure enough, searching for a few of the other upcoming titles shows that they’re not listed yet in Windows Store.

So it looks like ReCore will be first. Looks like I have some money to spend.