Back in July 2026, Microsoft announced via Xbox Wire that games from the original Xbox would get achievements implemented on modern consoles and PC. However, it seems that this long-requested feature has already been sneaking onto Xbox Series X|S for certain games without any official fanfare.

This has been confirmed by photographs taken by X users @xgramiliki and @PiquenoLoredo (via @CentralXBOX_) showing achievements for OG Xbox games like Destroy All Humans!, Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and KOF: Neowave.

However, it seems the update isn't finished, as each of the aforementioned games shows "0/0" achievements and zero Gamerscore earned. The possible explanation for this could be that these achievements have shown up on players' profiles by mistake due to a programming error before they were officially ready.

These achievements will probably be taken down shortly when Microsoft discovers this and brought back once they're fully ready so they can join the other OG Xbox titles that have achievements officially, like BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, Fuzion Frenzy.

Do note that if these achievements do show up again, Xbox's Vice President Jason Ronald has confirmed they will not unlock retroactively. This means you will need to play through each respective title again to unlock their achievements and Gamerscore.

Either way, this will be great news for Xbox Achievement hunters looking to get the prestige Xbox Mythic Achievement from their favorite OG Xbox titles and serve as the perfect excuse to replay them.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Xbox has officially announced that Game Pass is heading to eligible T-Mobile customers in the U.S. starting this November. Through T-Mobile's new "T-Mix" plan perks, eligible subscribers will be able to pick Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or Premium as an included benefit, granting access across Xbox consoles, PC, Smart TVs, and cloud devices.

If you’re based in the UK, this announcement might seem like something of a nothing burger. EE has offered Game Pass Ultimate as an "Inclusive Extra" or an easy mobile bill add-on over here for absolutely years now. But across the Atlantic, this is actually the very first time a major U.S. wireless carrier has integrated Xbox Game Pass directly into its mobile plans.

Here's how T-Mix works

T-Mobile's new setup moves away from rigid pre-selected bundles and introduces a modular "Picks" system across three main plan tiers: Standard, More, and Loaded.

Depending on your plan tier and the number of lines on your account, you receive a bucket of monthly Picks to spend across partner streaming, tech, and gaming perks.

• Xbox Game Pass Premium: Requires 2 Picks.
• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: Requires 3 Picks.

For single-line accounts, T-Mix More starts at $75/month and includes 2 Picks which is enough to cover Game Pass Premium. If you want full Game Pass Ultimate access, you'll need 3 Picks, which comes included with a single line on T-Mix Loaded starting at $95/month (or through multi-line account allotments).

T-Mobile is also letting subscribers "remix" and swap out their chosen partner perks four times a year, so you aren't permanently locked in if your gaming or streaming habits change.

Why is this a big deal? UK have had this for ages!

For years, U.S. mobile networks have thrown free Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, or Apple Music subscriptions at customers to push plan upgrades. Yet despite Xbox pushing cloud gaming so heavily on mobile devices, game subscription services haven't made it into the mix.

When I wrote earlier this year that the Xbox Game Pass problem could be fixed without dropping the price, my main argument was that Microsoft needed to tackle subscription fatigue by letting us consolidate our monthly bills. Bundling in with mobile contracts is a fantastic way to do that, but Xbox shouldn't stop there. Bringing that same modular approach to the subscription itself, by letting players swap out unused extras like Fortnite Crew or EA Play for perks they’ll actually use, would instantly soften the blow of that monthly fee. Yes the price hike was ultimately reversed, but my point still stands.

Either way, T-Mobile’s November rollout of T-Mix is a long overdue one for the US audience. If Microsoft wants Game Pass to keep expanding beyond traditional hardware, partnering with major telecom providers to absorb that out-of-pocket cost is easily one of the smartest moves they can make right now.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

If you're still waiting for a reasonable price on next-gen consoles to upgrade for Grand Theft Auto 6, you'll be waiting a long time. That said, Argos have just made a surprise cut to the Xbox Series S 512GB model, taking it down to pre-RAMpocalypse prices of £299.99.

I can't believe I'm calling this a deal but at this point in 2026 with the current climate, it actually is the cheapest way to upgrade to current gen right now and I can't see stocks lasting much longer. In fact, I'd argue the even better deal is the 1TB model at £349.99, down from £519.99, as the extra storage is kind of essential nowadays.

This deal couldn't have come at a better time for UK consumers, given that Xbox stock is so dire right now that Xbox is begging lapsed users to trade in their consoles and make them available for new customers.

The Xbox Series S has always been the easiest and cheapest way to get into Xbox's eco system, and launched in November 2020 for £249.99 as an alternative to the beefier Xbox Series X, but it plays all of the same current generation games. I wrote a full Xbox Series S review if you want to read further, but I still love and use mine daily (and at current prices it will be a family heirloom.)

Those prices are now a thing of the past, and £299.99 is a bargain by current standards, with the price being recently hiked to a whopping £519.99. Thanks to Argos, we are now at a reasonable price point again, but that will be entirely dependent on your postcode and whether there are any in stock, so go fast!

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Original Article:

On October 23, 2026, the official X account of Stellar Blade revealed that the game is going to have a collaboration with Overwatch titled "Overwatch X Eve Protocol".

Like past collaborations with other franchises, Overwatch will no doubt create new cosmetic rewards based on Stellar Blade's main characters and pass them on to Overwatch's Heroes.

The date for this collaboration and its content have not been specified at this time.

For those unaware, Stellar Blade is a character action game where you play as EVE, a soldier dispatched to Earth to liberate it from monstrous alien invaders called the Naytiba.

It's gained quite the cult following and critical acclaim since its release in 2024 for its in-depth combat gameplay and appealing main character, EVE. Ever since it ditched PlayStation exclusivity and started releasing on other platforms like PC and soon Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox fans have been rallying for an Xbox Series X|S port.

With this expected collaboration with Overwatch, a first-party Xbox franchise, there might be a chance we could get an Xbox version of Stellar Blade down the pipeline.

Would you like to play Stellar Blade on Xbox?

I wouldn't mind giving Stellar Blade a chance if it lands on Xbox Series X|S, especially with Xbox Play Anywhere so I can play it while travelling on holiday.

Its gameplay looks fun and gives off the same over-the-top feel as classic combat-heavy titles like Nier: Automata and Bayonetta (it's even getting a crossover Bayonetta skin for EVE when the game lands on Nintendo Switch 2).

But what do you think? Could this Overwatch collaboration be hinting at an Xbox Series X|S port of Stellar Blade? Would you play it if it landed on Xbox? Do you think Stellar Blade's sequel, Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, will come to Xbox as well?

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please let us know in the comments, poll, or Reddit.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Late on Friday, it was revealed that former Minecraft lead Helen Chiang was leaving Microsoft, shared by CEO Asha Sharma in an internal email.

Helen Chiang had been leading at Xbox as its first ever Chief Operations Officer, and had only been in the post for a few months. As such, the departure raised eyebrows immediately.

"Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today. I’m grateful for her years of service and wish her well," Asha Sharma said in an internal email shared by The Verge. Sharma noted that an update on the COO post would arrive later. Indeed, it doesn't sound as though the COO post is going away, suggesting that this wasn't a redundancy departure. People immediately began to speculate that Chiang had been removed over a clash or disagreement of sorts.

In a statement to Windows Central, a Microsoft spokesperson said: "We don't discuss individual personnel matters. We are grateful for Helen's years of service and wish her well," echoing statements given to other outlets.

We now have more detail on what might've transpired from Eurogamer, who suggests that Chiang was "terminated for policy violations," via one of its sources, although it said it wasn't able to gain additional corroborative sources.

Chiang has had a large, storied career at Microsoft. She joined all the way back in 2005 working on mapping software, and then began rising through the ranks of Xbox back in 2007. She's been working on Minecraft since 2014, and led the game's expansion across consoles, mobile devices, education services, merchandising, and more recently, movies and other transmedia opportunities.

Chiang is incredibly well-liked and highly regarded within Microsoft by every employee I've spoken to. She's known as supportive and helpful, described to me as going above and beyond for employees at all levels.

She has been one of Xbox's longest-serving leaders and her promotion to COO was celebrated. Her purported termination immediately struck me as odd, and not exactly something that would've been done lightly.

I suspect this isn't the last we've heard of this story, and certainly not the last we've heard of Chiang, who by all accounts was excellent in her role.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Xbox's 25th anniversary is here, and it's been a wild ride with plenty of ups and downs, to say the least.

To celebrate such a momentous occasion, I'm looking back on how I was introduced to the Xbox ecosystem, what convinced me to stick with it above all the other consoles, and how it shaped my most fond gaming memories.

• DEAL: Get Surfshark VPN 86% OFF with Windows Central 🦈

My first meeting with Xbox

My first memories of the Xbox ecosystem were during the early 2000s, when my brother came home with his friends to play some strange new sci-fi shooter called Halo on the original Xbox.

We all had a blast playing through the single campaign in co-op (despite my brother constantly getting us killed with his grenade obsession and bad Warthog driving skills) and even spent some time in the PvP modes fighting in the iconic 'Blood Gulch' map.

Admittedly, as a kid, I didn't play much of the OG Xbox's catalog, like Halo 1 and 2, as I was more obsessed with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube at the time.

Sadly, that meant I missed out on classics like Psychonauts, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Jade Empire when they were brand new, and I wouldn't get to play them until decades later.

I certainly can't say the same for the Xbox 360 when it came out in the mid-2000s, as I was obsessed with it as a teen.

Hooked by the Xbox 360

While I was still enjoying the amazing games on the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, I found myself spending more time with the Xbox 360 and its library of iconic games like Gears of War, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and BioShock, and underrated gems like Kameo: Elements of Power and Lost Odyssey, just to name a few.

I got to the point where I played multi-platform games like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Saints Row series, and Devil May Cry 4 only on Xbox 360, as I enjoyed its controls more for 3D games than any other home console.

And, in case anyone's wondering, my Xbox 360 managed to escape the infamous "Red Ring of Death", but I remember having technical issues of my own to deal with, mostly of my own making.

I somehow jumbled several Microsoft accounts together due to my inexperience with email addresses as a teen, and it took my brother several months to fix. I owed him big time for that and repaid his service by doing the "Scan the Keeper" quest in Mass Effect for him whenever he played (which has sadly become a family tradition I'll never escape from).

Thriving on the Xbox One

When the 2010s rolled around, there came a huge turning point in my gaming career. I was starting to become bored of how stale Nintendo games had become and was tired of dealing with motion-control gimmicks.

Plus, I was sick of having to deal with Sony's poor cybersecurity, as it was getting hacked every few months, forcing me to constantly change my account details on my PlayStation consoles.

As a result, I found myself playing console games exclusively on the Xbox One despite its disastrous launch, which mandated always-online requirements while being forced to be bundled with the Kinect, which Microsoft quickly backpedaled on.

While I didn't play the Xbox One as much as I did the Xbox 360 due to me getting into PC gaming during the mid-2010s, the Xbox One era held some of my fondest gaming memories and triumphs.

The Xbox One brought back one of the few fighting games I ever liked, Killer Instinct, with an amazing reboot that lasted for several years. It had amazing AAA titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Devil May Cry V, and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, and cool indie retro throwbacks like Cuphead.

However, all of those memories paled in comparison to when I was introduced to one of my favorite games of all time on the Xbox One (even though it's not an Xbox exclusive), Monster Hunter: World.

With over 2,000 hours on my Xbox save file, I have never before (or since) been so maddeningly obsessed with a single game as I was with Monster Hunter World on the Xbox One. The in-depth combat system, the vibrant, interactable world laden with secrets, the cool and challenging monsters, the endless amount of gear to grind for — it was amazing.

Even dealing with Monster Hunter World's cumbersome multiplayer matchmaking system and story-locking was worth suffering through, as hunting giant monsters the size of buildings with my friends was some of the most fun I ever had, and no other multiplayer game has topped it since for me.

A shaky modern era and the unknown future

And that brings us to the current Xbox Series X|S era, and it's been a mixed bag, to say the least. While it's brought us some amazing games like Elden Ring, Lies of P, Psychonauts 2, and Baldur's Gate 3, this era has brought about some depressing situations that made me almost consider quitting Xbox altogether.

The controversial Xbox 'reset' that has laid off hundreds of people, Microsoft banning people's hacked accounts instead of trying to recover them, the rising cost of everything due to the RAM crisis, and the horrifying realization that if something were to go wrong with Xbox Live, both digital and physical discs wouldn't work.

Yet despite this bleak era we're currently in, I'm not giving up. If Xbox was able to survive the global credit crisis of 2007 and the COVID-19 pandemic that lasted for several years, then I believe it will weather this cyber apocalypse as well.

So long as my friends keep playing Xbox games, I will stay the course so we can make more precious memories together as we ponder what the Xbox Series X|S's successor, Project Helix, will be like.

Happy anniversary, Xbox, and here's to another 25 years of gaming!

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.