When Microsoft first released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, it noted that in order to run next-generation games, they must be installed on the consoles internal drive, or on a special Seagate external card. The cost of such an external Seagate card is much higher than the usual price for an external HDD or SSD, and not all players want to get it. Almost immediately after the release of the Xbox Series X | S players have found that some games optimized for newer consoles can be played from an external conventional HDD or SSD.
Today Modern Vintage Gamer released a video to this effect, in which the author explains in detail when optimized games for Xbox Series X | S can work from a regular external HDD or SSD, and sometimes they can’t. The video itself can be viewed below:
The easiest way to determine if a game can be played from an external drive is to look at its settings. Games can be played from conventional external SSDs and HDDs if their parameters indicate:
App Model: XDKConsole Type: XboxOneGen9AwareGen: Durango
With other settings, games will not run from an external SSD or HDD, for example:
There is another option to easily determine if an optimized for Xbox Series X will work | S game from external storage or not. To do this, just set the external drive as the default storage device in the settings. If the game is able to run from an external drive, it will do so, and if it is not compatible with it, a message will appear asking you to install the game to the internal drive.
Reddit has a list of dozens of games that are optimized for Xbox Series X | S and work from an external drive.
