JARRED WALTON

Senior Editor

You might think that if anyone can do PC gaming properly, Microsoft—the company behind the Xbox consoles, not to mention Windows—would be a prime candidate. But Games for Windows left a sour taste in gamers’ mouths everywhere. Microsoft is back for another stab at PC gaming as a platform, this time in the form of the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). To say it’s a mixed blessing is putting it kindly; UWP is about control—specifically, ensuring users do not have any.

I’ve managed to avoid UWP games so far, but GearsofWar4 is a UWP exclusive. The good news is we actually have Gears ofWar4 on PC, along with Forza Horizon3, and several other Microsoft games. Microsoft also plans to have all future firstparty Xbox One titles launching on both Xbox and PC. And that’s a pretty sweet bone tossed our way, assuming it keeps it up.

Unfortunately, UWP also has problems. It’s Windows 10 only, it uses the execrable Xbox app for Windows—with a UI straight out of the ’90s—and things are locked down tight. Gears ofWar4 is an insane 73GB download, but suppose you have more than one PC—Steam, GoG, UPlay, and Origin all allow you to copy the appropriate files to another PC, and skip the second download. UWP says no to such efforts. Sigh.

Can’t we just call it Games for Windows 10, and get it over with?