Fast Resume Feature: Key to Smoother Xbox Gaming

Most next-gen gaming consoles have unique features to convince you to buy one platform over the other. But some of these features are forgotten by the time consoles progress to the next generation. The Xbox One and its TV gimmicks are a perfect example of this.

However, the Quick Resume feature for Xbox offers you lighting fast load times if you’re an Xbox Series X|S owner. But it isn’t without fault. So are the benefits of Quick Resume worth some of the restrictions that come with it, or will it end up like some of the Xbox gimmicks of the past? Let’s find out.

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How Quick Resume Benefits Your Xbox Series X|S Gaming Experience

With Quick Resume allowing you to pick up a game from exactly where you left it, even if you unplug your Xbox Series X|S from its power supply, there are obvious benefits to the feature. Let’s take a look at some:

1. Quick Resume Guarantees Your Progress in Supported Games

Perhaps the most obvious benefit, and the most useful to you, is how Quick Resume can guarantee your progress in games that use it. By this, even if you turn your Xbox Series X|S off, you can resume your game when you next turn it on to the last auto-save, cloud save, or save state.

While this is still slightly limited, it certainly beats relying on manual saves only or an in-game auto-save function, which in the event of something like a power cut, wouldn’t work anyway. But with Quick Resume, you have an in-built function on your Xbox working to help preserve your progress at all times.

If you alreadyuse Quick Resume on your Xbox Series X|S and rely on it for saves, just be mindful that the feature can only support up to three save states at once. So as long as you don’t have more than three games running through Quick Resume you should be fine.

2. You Can Shorten Your Xbox Series X|S Load Times With Quick Resume

Aside from the most useful feature of Quick Resume, the most consistently beneficial aspect is how it allows you to almost instantly resume supported games, making load times feel like a thing of the past.

There are manytips you can use to get more from your Xbox Series X|S , but being able to jump past initial loading screens by resuming your games right where you left them completely changes how you play on Xbox.

This is especially prevalent when playing games notorious for bad load times. The first time you inevitably replay The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim but jump past the barrage of loading with Quick Resume will almost completely sell the feature’s worth.

But while this feature is undoubtedly beneficial, it’s not perfect, and even the benefits of shortening load times come with caveats.

The Problems With Quick Resume on Xbox Series X|S

Quick Resume may provide huge leaps forward when it comes to game preservation and altering the way loading times work on consoles, but the feature is in dire need of fine-tuning. As it is, Quick Resume has a fair share of problems. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest offenders:

1. Quick Resume Has Created New Issues for Multiplayer Gaming

Unfortunately, one of the biggest issues with Quick Resume on your Xbox Series X|S is caused by one of its main benefits: reducing loading times.

For multiplayer orlive-service-based gaming , Quick Resume will nearly always load you into the main menu, not where you last left off. Not only does this go against the whole purpose of Quick Resume, but it can also mean needing to restart your entire game.

If you play games like Halo Infinite or backwards compatible titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Quick Resume puts you in the main menu while disconnecting you from the online server. In these cases, you’ll need to reconnect or restart your game before you can play online.

If this happens, you could see Quick Resume as prolonging the time it takes to enter a game, and with online-only multiplayer experiences taking control of the gaming industry, this problem will only get worse.

2. Quick Resume Is a Mandatory Feature of Your Xbox Series X|S

A further complication of Quick Resume on Xbox Series X|S is that if you find yourself affected by some of its issues, like disconnecting from servers or being locked in a main menu, there is no way to disable it.

Quick Resume is baked into Xbox Series X|S consoles and turning the feature off isn’t an available option if you have problems with the feature. Instead, you can use theQuick Resume tab underMy games & apps in the Guide menu of your Xbox to individually selectRemove from Quick Resume before loading a game.

But even with this function, Quick Resume adds unnecessary steps to loading a game you want to play. And without a way to universally deactivate the feature or, better yet, disable it for online games only, it remains an unreliable and sometimes irritating feature of your Xbox Series X|S.

Quick Resume Needs to Accommodate for Online Gaming

While Quick Resume is a huge leap forward on paper and in practice for some games, the feature doesn’t accommodate all your gaming needs and is far from reliable.

Unfortunately, until Xbox releases a way for you to remove the feature for online gaming or even correct some of the issues with online gaming, it may become an even bigger hindrance than it already is.

And without changes, you could find Quick Resume going down the same avenue as Xbox features of the past. Luckily, Xbox has stated that it will address this issue at some point, as reported byVideo Games Chronicle . Hopefully, Xbox actually works on a fix soon, and don’t hold off until it’s too late.

Quick Resume Is a Great Idea With Irritating Issues

The ideas behind Quick Resume are sound, and the feature is amazing when it works, making it a legitimate reason you may look to get an Xbox Series X|S over a PlayStation 5—in theory.

Until the irritating issues with online games, which make up a large portion of the industry, are fixed, Quick Resume will remain frustrating. Even when the feature works, you’ll likely find it more surprising than consistent.

So, unless Quick Resume is fine-tuned, it and the unique features of Xbox Series X|S consoles will be held back.

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