Xbox Series X gamers are getting a great free console upgrade

(Image credit: Future)

published 16 February 2022

I love Quick Resume: as a parent whose gaming sessions are often short and sweet, time spent watching loading screens on my Xbox Series X is time I don't want to waste. So Quick Resume is brilliant: I can pick up my controller and be right back in games such as Halo: Infinite without having to sit through more logos than you'll find in a pub quiz picture round.

So what could possibly be better than Quick Resume? How about Quick Resume that enables you to pin two games to Quick Resume for as long as you'd like? That's what the incoming Keep In Quick Resume feature will deliver.

No screens if you want to go faster

The thing about Quick Resume is that it's not something you have much control over: in its current form there's no way to pin specific games so they're always there for instant access, and if you play a lot of different games then a new save can push one of your favourites out of Quick Resume altogether. That's not ideal if you're all over your games library before returning to favourites such as, say, Hades and one of the best Xbox driving games. So a Quick Resume that enables you to pin two favourite games until you no longer want them pinned is a great update.

That's the good news. The bad is that it's not quite here yet. The feature was mentioned in the latest release note for Alpha Skip-Ahead users, but the reference has since been pulled – although not so quickly that it wasn't noticed. According to the notes, the incoming feature will mean that "users on Xbox Series X|S consoles can now keep up to two games in Quick Resume no matter what other games are launched. These games will only drop out of Quick Resume if the user manually removes it or if a game is updated."

As to when the Keep In Quick Resume feature will land, we're hoping that we could see the feature drop sooner rather than later, as it was originally pegged for launch now. However, recent Xbox Insider comments mention "confusion" regarding it being detailed in the Alpha Skip-Ahead release notes and then say the new feature will come in a "future update". Hopefully Xbox Series X gamers don't have to wait too long.

Update, 15 Feb: thanks to everyone who pointed out my muddled wording and sorry for any confusion.

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).