14 DAY TRIAL // If you’re already on Windows 10 Mobile and feeling nostalgic about some of your favorite Windows Phone 7 games, here’s some good news: Microsoft’s new smartphone operating system adds support for a number of old titles, and all can be found in the store.
Microsoft hasn’t publicly announced the possibility of playing old games on Windows 10 Mobile, but according to some users, the feature has been there since previous preview builds of the operating system, with some claiming they have been running titles such as Twin Blades since July.
The company, however, states in the release notes of version 10586.29, which is the latest release of Windows 10 Mobile available to users (insiders and Lumia 950/950 XL owners), that “improved application backwards compatibility for Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight applications” is included. This means that the feature was most likely there, but the Windows team is working to further improve it.
Supported games
For the moment, there’s no official list of old games running on Windows 10 Mobile, but according to this reddit post, Fable: Coin Golf, Sonic CD, Orbital, and Chickens Can’t Fly are all running smoothly on the new platform.
While most of these games are in the store, the chances are that you might not be able to find all of them using the built-in search feature, so the only way to download and install them is by going to your apps library and getting them from there. This is only valid if you’ve previously downloaded the app on your Windows Phone 8.1 or Windows Phone 7 device, so only loyal Windows users might enjoy it.
Windows 10 Mobile is not yet available for Windows Phone devices unless they are enrolled in the Windows Insider program, but according to Microsoft itself, the rollout should begin for everyone in early 2016. Some pundits have previously said that it’s either late January or early February, but for the moment, nothing is certain because work on the operating system still continues.