Quick Read Points
- Microsoft’s April 2026 Xbox update is now live for all Series X/S users
- You can finally disable Quick Resume on a game-by-game basis — a feature players have wanted since 2020
- Find it via More Options on a game tile, then Manage Quick Resume, or through Manage Game and Add-ons
- The feature is especially useful for always-online and multiplayer games that constantly dropped connections on resume
- The update also adds custom dashboard colors, up to 10 Home screen groups (up from 2), a Play History tab, and profile badges
- A Network Quality Indicator for cloud gaming has also been added
- The update first rolled out to Xbox Insider beta members in March before going live to everyone
Microsoft has pushed out the Xbox Series X/S April 2026 system update, and it is easily the most meaningful firmware release the console has seen all year. February and March brought nothing more than stability patches and backend bug fixes — useful, sure, but not exactly exciting. This one is different. There are five new features in this drop, and one of them in particular has been on the community’s wishlist since the Series X launched back in 2020.
Disabling Quick Resume Per Game — Finally
Quick Resume is one of the genuinely clever ideas Microsoft brought to this console generation. The concept is simple: suspend multiple games simultaneously so that when you return to any of them, you are dropped back in within seconds — even if the console has been completely powered off. For certain games, especially offline single-player titles, it is an absolute joy to use.
The problem? It has never worked well with online-focused games. Always-online titles, multiplayer games, and anything that relies on a constant server connection would regularly fall apart after being suspended in Quick Resume. You would jump back in expecting to pick up where you left off and instead get hit with a disconnected lobby, a server timeout, or a forced restart anyway — meaning the supposed convenience of Quick Resume had actually just cost you extra steps compared to booting fresh. Some games like Borderlands 3 simply ignored the feature and restarted from scratch every time regardless.
As of the April 2026 update, that frustration has a solution. You can now disable Quick Resume on a per-game basis, meaning specific titles will always close fully when you leave them and boot from the main menu when you return. Here is exactly how to access it:
- Open the More Options menu on any game tile on your dashboard
- Select Manage Quick Resume
- On the next page, select Disable Quick Resume
- Alternatively, go to Manage Game and Add-ons and then Quick Resume Settings
It is a simple toggle, but the impact is significant. Games like Battlefield 6, Arc Raiders, and Call of Duty are exactly the kinds of titles where you want a clean fresh boot every time rather than resuming a stale suspended session that has been sitting disconnected for hours. Having that control now means Quick Resume stays switched on for the games where it genuinely shines, and gets out of the way for the ones where it has always been a liability.
Worth noting: even Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb — longtime Xbox icon and former Microsoft employee — acknowledged on X that he first requested this feature five years ago while still at the company. Five years. Better late than never, but the community will be the first to tell you this one was a long time coming.
What Else Is in the April 2026 Xbox Update?
The Quick Resume toggle is the headline, but the rest of the update is also worth running through because several of these additions have been quietly requested for a while too.
Home Screen Groups — Up from 2 to 10: The previous limit of only two pinned groups on the Xbox Home screen was genuinely restrictive for anyone with a large library. That cap has now been raised to 10, and you can also pin individual games directly to Home alongside those groups. Reordering works the same way as rearranging game tiles, which keeps things familiar.
Custom Dashboard Colors: You can now set a fully custom color for your profile and Guide rather than being locked to Microsoft’s preset selection. Head to Settings, then General, then Personalization, then Customize the Guide. If you switch back to a system color at any point, Xbox saves your last custom selection so you can return to it easily.
Play History Tab: A new tab has been added inside My Games and Apps that shows your most recently played titles. Small feature, genuinely useful for quickly jumping back into something you were playing recently without having to hunt it down.
Profile Badges: When you open your own profile or view another player’s in the Guide, you will now see their five most recently unlocked badges. It is a nice touch for surfacing achievements and milestones without having to dig into someone’s full profile.
Cloud Gaming Improvements: A new Network Quality Indicator has been added to give real-time feedback on your streaming connection stability, and players can now select their preferred streaming resolution. Both are welcome additions as Xbox continues leaning into cloud gaming as a major part of its platform strategy.
Quick Resume When It Works Is Still Great — And Now It Can Work Better
Here is the thing — Quick Resume deserves some defending even after years of legitimate complaints about it. For the right type of game, it is one of the best quality-of-life features the current generation of consoles has to offer. Jumping straight back into a lengthy RPG or an offline single-player adventure without any load screens or boot sequences is genuinely impressive technology, and it quietly makes the most of the fast SSD at the heart of the Series X/S.
Titles like The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and other long-form single-player experiences are where Quick Resume is at its absolute best. Palate-cleansing between marathon sessions — switching over to Netflix or another app and then jumping straight back into a world exactly where you left it — is the kind of seamless experience that still feels impressive however many times you do it.
The problem was never Quick Resume itself. It was the lack of control over which games it applied to. Now that you can surgically switch it off for the titles that caused problems while keeping it active for the ones that benefit from it, the feature becomes significantly more reliable as part of your everyday console experience. You can actually trust it now, because you are the one deciding where it runs.
If you are keeping up with gaming news across platforms this week, Fortnite players also have something to look forward to — Epic CEO Tim Sweeney just confirmed permanent custom profile pictures are coming to Fortnite, which has been equally long-requested by that community.
How to Update Your Xbox Series X/S Now
The April 2026 update is rolling out to all Xbox Series X/S consoles now. If your console is set to auto-update, it will likely already be installed or will download overnight while the machine is in standby. To check manually, go to Settings, then System, then Updates and check for the latest version.
Mac users are still waiting on the update if they are using that version of the platform, but PC, PlayStation crossplay, and all major console platforms should have access now.
All in all, this is the kind of update that does not reinvent the wheel but meaningfully improves the day-to-day experience of using an Xbox Series X or S. Custom colors and extra Home groups are nice extras, but the Quick Resume toggle is the one that matters — and for a lot of players, it is going to make a real difference to how they interact with their console from this point forward.
For more gaming coverage across all platforms, check out what just dropped for Pokémon fans — the Pokémon Pokopia 1.0.4 patch notes landed with some solid fixes, and the Infinity Nikki Version 2.5 Boneyard Update is also making waves this week.
