Skip to main content

Xbox Indie Creators Program goes live today with first wave of games

First announced back in March, the Xbox Live Creators Program is now live, allowing any developer to directly publish its games to Xbox One and Windows 10. Coinciding with the launch of the service, the first wave of games from the program is live for download.

With the Creators Program, Xbox is giving game developers large and small an outlet to create different types of games for every kind of player. Unlike the standard Xbox Live store, developers can directly publish any of their games to Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs with little more than a simple certification process. Absolutely no concept approval is required.

Recommended Videos

Such a great level of freedom allows for some truly unique games. While some can be quirky and feature varying degrees of polish, they are always interesting. Checking out a game from the Creators Program is as easy as finding the right section. For Windows 10, these games are in the Games category of the Store. On Xbox One, they can be found in the Creators Collection.

For developers looking to publish their game, the process has been made simple. Developers can take advantage of tools like the free Dev Mode Activation app for their Xbox One consoles, as well as game engines such as Unity, Construct 2, MonoGame, and Xenko. Once a game is made, the barrier to entry is minimal. Microsoft Developer accounts cost as little as $20, after which the game can ship through a short and simplified certification process.

Games published through the Creators Program won’t have any Achievements, Gamerscore, or online multiplayer, but they will still have access to the full set of social features from Xbox Live. This includes broadcasting on Mixer, Game DVR, Party Chat, and more. To access the achievements and the like, professional developers can publish their games through the ID@Xbox program.

Current offerings already span multiple genres including rhythm games, dungeon crawlers, abstract puzzle games, and sci-fi shooters.

Additional information about the Creators Program can be found on the Xbox Wire page. Any young developers interested in the program are encouraged to sign up now through the program’s web page.

Garrett Hulfish
Garrett is the kind of guy who tells you about all the tech you haven't heard of yet. He also knows too much about other…
Xbox Live is down, so you can’t sign into your Xbox account
The Xbox logo from Xbox Games Showcase 2024

Xbox Live experienced a major sign-in outage Tuesday afternoon that made it impossible to log into your Xbox profile to play games online.

I noticed it after attempting to sign into my Xbox Live account on my Xbox Series X. I got an error message telling me to "try again in a while." A quick glance at X (formerly Twitter) confirmed that I was not the only person to have this issue. "We are aware that some users have been disconnected from Xbox Live. We're investigating! Please follow here and on our status page for updates," the official X account for Xbox Support tweeted.

Read more
3 first-party Xbox Game Pass games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Gears 5 Kait Hero Close Up

Microsoft will hold an Xbox Games Showcase and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct. this Sunday. These shows will provide a much better idea of what to expect from Xbox over the course of the next year or two. That's really needed right now, as Microsoft has struggled to keep online discussions around Xbox positive as it went multiplatform with some games, laid off thousands of developers, and outright shut down the developers of Hi-Fi Rush and Redfall. Based on leaks and my personal expectations for the showcase, there are three games you can play on Xbox Game Pass this weekend to prepare for the event.

The first is the latest first-person shooter in a long-running series by id Software that might be getting a medieval-set spinoff. After that, we have the fifth entry in a sci-fi Xbox series that still looks fantastic on Xbox Series X/S even though it came out in 2019. Finally, you can prepare for Avowed with the latest RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, a satirical sci-fi game where player choice is critical.
Doom Eternal

Read more
Xbox Game Pass gets its first Activision Blizzard game very soon
Diablo IV

Microsoft unveiled the batch of titles coming to its gaming subscription service throughout the back half of March. Quite a few awesome titles are making their way to the service, but by far, the most notable addition is Diablo IV, the first Activision Blizzard game being made available on Xbox Game Pass.

Diablo IV was released in June 2023, just a few months before Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. It's the latest entry in a long-running isometric RPG series, and it retains the same engaging dungeon design, deep progression systems, and captivating loot loop that makes games in this franchise special. People have been wondering when Activision Blizzard games would arrive on Xbox Game Pass in the months since the acquisition process was completed, and Diablo IV was finally confirmed to be coming to the service on March 28 last month.

Read more