Bringing games to Windows on Arm isn’t exactly rocket science. The lack of games for Windows on Arm might suggest that it’s difficult to develop games for the hardware. That isn’t the case.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X is new, but it’s only the latest chapter in Microsoft’s decade-long struggle to make Windows on Arm viable. Microsoft and Qualcomm previously partnered for the Snapdragon 8cx, announced in December of 2018. And Microsoft’s Arm-first operating system, Windows RT, was revealed all the way back in 2011 (though quickly discontinued in favor of bringing Arm to all versions of Windows).
It’s been a journey, to say the least. Along the way, Microsoft has deployed tools to make it easier to develop for Windows on Arm. The Windows SDK, which many developers use as a starting point when building for Windows, has offered an Arm compiler for years.
Developer Insights
Developed by Spacefarer R&D, this game is available on Windows, both x86 and Arm.
“It’s actually not that different to developing on Windows and on other game consoles,” said Jake Jackson, a developer at indie game studio Spacefarer R&D, which developed action-adventure game The Dawning Clocks of Time Remake, available on Windows for both x86 and Arm. “In fact, since we developed the game as a Nintendo Switch title first, which is indeed an Nvidia Tegra Arm64 chip, we already did the main optimization and graphic pipeline work from the get-go.”
Jackson’s experience might not be relevant to every game developer, but it’s certainly representative of many. The Nintendo Switch is hugely popular across the globe and an extremely common target platform for game development. Many prominent indie games, from Stardew Valley to Dead Cells to Hollow Knight, are available on Switch.
If it can play on the Arm-based Nintendo Switch, why not Windows?
Aaron Giles, a developer who worked at Microsoft and helped bring Windows to Arm, shared similar thoughts. Giles retired from Microsoft in 2021 and now works on a variety of projects. One of these is DREAMM, an emulator for classic LucasArts games. (Giles was a programmer at LucasArts in the mid-90s.) Giles developed x86 and Arm-native versions of DREAMM for both Windows and macOS.
“DREAMM is a bit of a unique case in that it’s an emulator that has a large assembly language component (the CPU emulator), which I’ve hand-crafted for both Intel and Arm systems,” said Giles. “Outside of that, it’s just a recompile and everything else works fine as-is, to be honest.”
The Distribution Dilemma
If Windows on Arm is capable of games, why are game developers avoiding it?
The thing is, there are a number of popular PC games that have Arm versions available for other, non-PC platforms. Civilization VI, Fortnite, Baldur’s Gate 3, Stardew Valley, and Total War: Warhammer III are high-profile games that can run natively on Arm hardware, yet aren’t available for Windows laptops with Arm processors.
So, what’s the hold-up? Well, digital storefronts like Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store don’t distribute games for Windows on Arm.
“Steamworks doesn’t have the option currently to distribute an Arm version of the game, even though the ability to produce a very performant build in Unity has been there for some time now. For some reason, they’re slow at adopting this. GOG does not distribute Arm apps either,” said Jackson.
And while digital storefront support isn’t a problem for Giles, since DREAMM is available for free through his website, he did say the lack of Arm support could be a problem for other developers. “Compiling for Arm is a no-brainer for 99% of stuff, so it’s quite possible that the lack of Arm-supporting distribution outlets is a problem,” said Giles.
Yeah, that’s an issue. Game development is an art, but—for most developers—it’s also a business. Developing a version of a game that’s difficult to distribute and sell is decidedly not good business.
