After 11 years, Xbox One emulators are finally coming to PC - but they're not actually using emulation at all

Fan developers have recently revealed XWine1, a compatibility layer that aims to do everything you could want from an Xbox One emulator.

The devs unveiled their project to the world on September 8. "Introducing XWine1, an Xbox One translation layer for Windows PCs," they said on Twitter. "Currently six games are fully playable, with others reaching logos and in-game. More news to come!" Accompanying the tweet were a series of images showing games like Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, Limbo, Peggle 2, Sonic Mania, and Undertale running through XWine1.

XWine1 is, again, a compatibility layer rather than an emulator. On a technical level, Xbox One is essentially a PC using a heavily modified version of Windows, and this software simply translates native Xbox applications into a form that can run on standard Windows PCs. It's similar to Valve's Proton compatibility layer, which translates Windows games into a form that can be run on Linux-based devices, notably including the Steam Deck.

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Of course, seeing the likes of Minecraft and Undertale running on PC might not inspire much excitement since they - like the overwhelming majority of Xbox One games - are available natively on the platform. The list of true Xbox One exclusives is vanishingly small, including games like Halo 5, the Rare Replay collection, and a handful of Forza titles. That tiny list of exclusives is probably why it's taken so long for developers to pick up the torch for Xbox One, while PS4 emulation has had a major head start.

But the Xbox One itself has a secret bonus. It's got robust original Xbox and Xbox 360 emulators that match - and often exceed - unofficial options. The XWine1 devs say the software should eventually support games that were made backward compatible on Xbox One, and I've got my fingers crossed that this might eventually expand to games not originally whitelisted by Microsoft for backward compatibility.

But if that ever happens, it's a long way off. XWine1 appears to be quite early in development, as the developers haven't even released a public version of the project for you to try out. For now, it's "not ready for public consumption just yet," as the devs explained in a follow-up post. "We will likely end up open-sourcing the project alongside the first binary release, but it's too early to confirm anything yet."

It's worth noting that XWine1 isn't the only Xbox One compatibility layer in development, but many of its contemporaries have not yet made the jump to publicly reveal themselves just yet. The only other one now in the public eye is WinDurango, which is on GitHub but not yet compatible with any games. Here's hoping that at least one of these projects can reach the point where it's able to run a big swath of the Xbox One library.

Maybe we'll have an all-new way to play the best Xbox One games sooner rather than later.