Building XBOX Games with Unreal Engine’s New GDK Plug-ins

The Microsoft GDK Plug-ins for Unreal Engine are now publicly available as part of the Unreal Engine 5.8 release, downloadable today through the Epic Games Launcher and available in Unreal Engine source provided by Epic Games on GitHub. These plug-ins give you everything you need to build, package, and ship your game on XBOX on PC, without leaving the Win64 platform you already work on.

These plug-ins, paired with the Microsoft GDK available on GitHub, and our improvements to onboarding which enable developers to get up and running with a working Xbox development environment in a matter of minutes in what previously took days to achieve, are a huge step forward towards building for XBOX within Unreal Engine. With Unreal Engine 5.8 these plug-ins are now open to the millions of developers who build upon the Unreal Engine source in GitHub and the Unreal Engine version available in Epic Games Launcher.

Why this matters

Our goal is simple: make it easier to build for XBOX on PC, regardless of the engine you've chosen.

Previously, building XBOX on PC in Unreal Engine meant using WinGDK, which is a separate platform that required duplicate cooks, introduced third-party plug-in platform incompatibility, and added friction with a different model of building your PC game that differed from other PC storefronts. The new plug-in model eliminates that. You stay on Win64, your existing third-party plug-ins keep working, and the workflow updates mean it is a more streamlined part of the Win64 platform in engine, like other PC storefronts.

And until now, accessing these plug-ins required gated access as part of the private GDK Platform Extensions, which provide capabilities for Xbox Series X|S & Xbox One development within Unreal Engine. Starting today with the release of Unreal Engine 5.8, the plug-ins that you use to build for XBOX on PC are public - discoverable and downloadable by any Unreal Engine developer. No gates, no waiting.

What we're releasing

The Microsoft GDK Plug-ins for Unreal Engine provide the foundation for building XBOX on PC games - covering store packaging, GDK runtime access, XBOX Services, GameInput, and more. Key plug-ins include:

• Microsoft GDK Store: Configure your game in the editor and generate packages for XBOX on PC, right from Project Settings.
• Microsoft GDK Runtime: Access GDK APIs at runtime for XBOX-compatible cloud save games, user selection, and System UI.
• Online Subsystem GDK: Leverage Unreal Engine’s platform abstraction layer to easily manage Achievements, Friends, Presence, and more.
• Online Subsystem Selector (new in 5.8): Ship a single executable across multiple PC storefronts with automatic runtime switching of OSS behavior.

These plug-ins are battle-tested. Epic Games used them to ship Fortnite on XBOX on PC and achieve Handheld Optimized certification on the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally.

How to get started

Choose which option works best for you:

1. Install Unreal Engine 5.8, available via the Epic Games Launcher or GitHub source.

2. Install the Microsoft GDK, UE 5.8 supports a broad range of versions up to April 2026 GDK.

3. Enable the Microsoft GDK plug-ins in the Plug-in Menu & configure the Project Settings under MS Gaming (PC GDK) to associate your game with Microsoft Partner Center.

4. Configure & package your game: Configure your metadata and generate your package directly from the editor.

If you have an existing WinGDK title, a migration script is included to walk you through the conversion:

RunUAT MigrateWinGDK -project=Path/To/Project.uproject

We also presented a deep dive at UnrealFest Chicago 2026 alongside Epic Games, including how Fortnite shipped with these plug-ins. We will share the video & presentation when this video is published online.

Learn more

• Microsoft GDK Plug-ins for Unreal Engine Documentation
• Getting started with Unreal Engine & Microsoft GDK Documentation
• Press Start: Get Your PC Game Ready for XBOX in One Day
• Register for ID@Xbox
• Join the community on Discord

Thanks to Epic Games for their partnership. We are excited to see the path from Unreal Engine to XBOX on PC become shorter, smoother, and more open.