Although many developers turn to Unreal Engine or Unity to bring their gaming visions to life, open-source Godot is becoming increasingly popular, thanks to its lightweight structure and intuitive scripting language. Now Microsoft has taken a ‘first step’ to expanding its user base even further, by releasing a reference sample software package for creating Godot games for Xbox on PC.
Yes, I know I should be writing XBOX on PC, given that Microsoft has decided to settle on the format, but I’ll be writing Xbox until I’m in the grave. Anyway, nomenclature aside, it should be noted that Microsoft hasn’t released an ‘Xbox-version of Godot’ or anything like that.
Instead, it’s essentially a demonstration of how to implement all of the necessary Xbox on PC requirements (such as Xbox services, PlayFab, and GameInput) in a Godot-based game.
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“This sample shows you how to bring sign-in, gamepad controller support capabilities and more into your game with Godot. It includes insights, re-usable integration code, and is currently compatible with the April 2026 GDK out of the box,” writes Microsoft in its dev blog post.
Although Godot has been traditionally associated with 2D indie games, such as Brotato, Slay the Spire 2, and numerous cozy games, it does handle 3D graphics extremely well, and there’s a decent spread of things being developed that sport visuals that wouldn’t look out of place in anything made with Unity or Unreal Engine (full-blown ray-tracing aside).
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I’ve dabbled with UE for many years, going all the way back to the late 1990s with its first iteration, having first dipped my toe into it all with UnrealEd and custom maps for Unreal Tournament. These days, Unreal Engine is a massively complex and capable package, used for games, TV shows, and more, but while it’s relatively straightforward to get started with, mastering it is on a whole different level.
By having a much smaller remit, Godot is arguably easier to work with, although it’s perhaps still not quite as novice-friendly as Unity. But since it’s also entirely free and open-source, any revenue your game makes is 100% yours. Well, yours and the publisher’s. Oh, and the platform that you sell it on, too.
Microsoft says that its Godot sample is a “source-only sample” and “not a product”, as well as purely for PC at this stage, and that there is “no set update cadence for support or maintenance.” That doesn’t sound overly encouraging, I grant you, but the software giant does promise that “This is the first step in bringing Godot for Xbox on PC. We plan to evolve it over time based on what the community tells us is most valuable.”
I suspect we won’t see a full Xbox on PC version of Godot any time soon, or perhaps even ever, but if Microsoft really is serious about saving its Xbox brand, more Godot samples like this one would be a step in the right direction.
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