Steam & Gamepass

Vandle · Monday at 01:49

I'm a bit of PC gaming noob, I have a steam account and own 1 game via their library. I am also a console player and stacked up 3 years of Gamepass a while back when it was cheap to do so, I have recently been gaming on my PC via the Xbox app within Windows which I linked to my MS Xbox account so I could use Gamepass. All good so far however at the weekend I tried to play The Hunt with a mate and even though we are connected on Steam and he invites me to his lobby Steam thinks I don't own the game even though I can launch it via the Xbox app and via a direct desktop shortcut to the game. Am I trapped in Microsoft’s walled garden? Is there a work around other then me purchasing the game through Steam (which I am not going to do)?

Ta

aaronyuri · Monday at 03:26

Your mate needs to invite whatever your Xbox gamertag is as you are launching the game using the Xbox application and your MS identity. This has nothing to do with your Steam account. Steam will not recognise games owned/subscribed to outside of those purchased on the Steam storefront.

You do not own the game on Steam; Steam tells you that you don't own the game. Simples.

xaldub · Monday at 08:28

Really depends on the game and if it has true crossplay ie. platform agnostic. Most games don't have this. So yes, the Xbox app ( even on PC ) is a "walled garden" - you can crossplay with Xbox consoles, but not Steam, Epic Game Store etc which are all considered separate platforms. There are a few exceptions, but not many. In general, if your mate has a game on Steam and you want to play the same game with him, you need to be on Steam too. As @aaronyuri says, your Xbox ID means nothing to Steam. Two entirely separate things.

loftie · Monday at 08:55

The hunt showdown does have crossplay from what I can see. But they don't allow you to invite across different platforms.

Dev post on reddit 2 months ago suggests they're working on improving it.

Vandle · Tuesday at 03:22

loftie said:
The hunt showdown does have crossplay from what I can see. But they don't allow you to invite across different platforms.

Dev post on reddit 2 months ago suggests they're working on improving it.

Yeah I have since seen that. I didn't realise these differing platforms restricted it the way they do. Seems there is no other option!

loftie · Tuesday at 08:31

Vandle said:
Yeah I have since seen that. I didn't realise these differing platforms restricted it the way they do. Seems there is no other option!

It's not so much the platforms as the games. Yes there are more hoops to jump through for crossplay, but it is possible. Darktide is cross play for example. Only way to know is Google really unfortunately.