“Another example of Game Pass disparity”: Kingdom Come Deliverance II runs natively on ARM with Steam, but not the Xbox app
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II has received a native ARM64 build via Steam, allowing it to run natively on Snapdragon X-powered laptops. This development highlights a growing disparity between Steam’s support for ARM architecture and the Xbox PC app’s capabilities. While the RPG was already available for traditional x86-64 gaming PCs from AMD and Intel, the new ARM build extends compatibility to the emerging ecosystem of ARM-based Windows devices. However, the Xbox PC app has not received the corresponding update, leaving Game Pass subscribers on Snapdragon devices unable to play the game natively through Microsoft’s platform.
This represents another point of friction in the ongoing fragmentation between Steam and the Xbox app on PC. Despite Xbox Game Pass for PC’s growing catalog, it continues to lag behind Steam in supporting emerging hardware architectures and platform optimizations. The disparity is particularly notable as Snapdragon X processors gain market share in the Windows laptop space, positioning them as increasingly important devices for PC gaming.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, praised for its “near-flawless” performance and design as “the perfect RPG sequel,” now demonstrates deeper platform compatibility on Steam than on Xbox’s first-party distribution channel. This gap in feature parity may frustrate Game Pass subscribers using newer ARM-based Windows hardware, forcing them to choose between playing through the Xbox app with potential compatibility issues or purchasing separately on Steam to access native performance.