The Game Assist feature for Xbox Game Bar on Windows 11 (also known as Microsoft Edge Game Assist) has got itself some nice updates for the month of March.
The handy bitesize browser which runs through Game Bar is a perfect tool to access guide content without navigating away from your games.
One of its primary features is having awareness of the game you're playing and serving up a smattering of potentially helpful content without the need to search. For March, that list of games is getting longer. Adding to the list of supported titles are:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Avowed
- Civilization VII
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Rocket League
These join some of the previously supported titles which include Baldurs Gate 3, Diablo 4, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Microsoft has a full list of titles if you're interested to know if your favorite is supported.
I should point out though, at least in my experience, neither Black Ops 6 nor Avowed seem to trigger game aware suggestions on the new tab page right now. This could be a location thing, it could be a staggered rollout, but it's worth highlighting. I've checked it with Minecraft and all is well, so maybe it just needs some time.
One of the other features of note is support for ad blockers. What you really don't want to see in the middle of your game is a big, nasty looking ad covering the content you're trying to read. Game Assist will now respect your ad blocker, assuming you have one installed in Microsoft Edge.
This does extend further to other extensions, too:
"We heard your feedback that ad blockers are crucial, so we’re thrilled to bring initial support for extensions to Game Assist! Game Assist currently supports many extensions that automatically run on the webpage, like ad blockers. Extensions can be installed and managed using the desktop version of Microsoft Edge."
Extension support will be extended soon to sidebar apps, too, and not just browser tabs. This is currently in testing in the Canary and Dev channels, so it'll roll down to Stable when it's fully baked.
Some other interesting features in the latest update on the Stable channel include:
- Reduced the minimum height and width of the Game Assist widget.
- Improved picture-in-picture mode when watching a video in full screen.
- Added support for keyboard shortcuts, including new tab (Ctrl+T), close current tab (Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4), duplicate current tab (Ctrl+Shift+K), reopen last closed tab (Ctrl+Shift+T), reload current page (Ctrl+R or F5), and reload current page and ignore cached content (Ctrl+Shift+R or Shift+F5).
There's more than just this, too, and a whole changelog for the Canary/Dev channel update. One notable other new feature being tested there is that the default page rendering has been switched from mobile to desktop, to ensure better compatibility.
If you want to try all this out for yourself, all you have to do is ensure you've installed the Game Assist widget from the Microsoft Edge Settings, then you're good to go.
