Xbox system update adds new dynamic themes, pre-load for Game Pass

Well, that didn’t take long: Xbox is rolling out its first major system update of the Series X|S era, and it adds some nifty features.

First up is additional dynamic themes, which are new to the Series X and S. All told, there are six new themes that include “homages to previous generations of Xbox consoles,” according to Xbox Wire.

This update will also add additional tags to make it clearer that you’re getting the best possible versions of the games you’re playing on Series consoles. The previously advertised “Optimized for Series X|S” badge have been added to the tiles in the Games Library. Better yet, games with the Game Pass tag will also have the “X|S” tag next to it, so you know exactly which Game Pass games are optimized. It’s also important to note that you can also filter your library to only see optimized games.

Likewise, an Auto HDR tech tag has launched with the new software update. This tag will tell you what backwards compatible games have received an automatic upgrade from Standard Dynamic Range to High Dynamic Range, one of the Series consoles’ coolest features.

As far as features that Xbox Series and Xbox One owners can both take advantage of, there’s a new Game Activity tab, which will add an Achievement tracker as well as tell you which friends are currently playing the game and what in-game events are active. You can also add family member accounts during setup, but this mostly just applies to new Xbox owners.

The biggest quality-of-life update for Game Pass is the ability to pre-install games listed as “Coming soon” section. Xbox states that “not all games that are ‘Coming soon’ can be pre-installed,” but its engineers developed “a special feature for the Game Pass mobile app that lets you queue the rest to install on day one.”

While this is a decent update, there are still several features we’d love to see added for Xbox Series consoles, including the ability to see which games are actually queued up for Quick Resume.