Xbox console update now lets everyone enjoy decluttered, poster-style game art

The Xbox update for July now lets everyone access cleaner game art and a new info hub

If you own an Xbox Series X|S or an Xbox One, you can now download a major system update for July 2026 from your console's Settings menu that gives you access to a number of the cool features teased during the Xbox Insider console update for June 2026. Among a surprisingly lengthy list of changes with this update, the feature many of us have been looking forward to the most is the new poster-style game artwork option. This change lets you adopt a clean, expanded rectangular look for all of your downloaded games in the 'My games & apps' section of your Xbox console, shaking off the rigid square look they've had for quite some time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj2rpjTo6Fs What's more, there are also new options that let you remove all the badges and icons that usually clutter the artwork on console. Simply hit the menu button on your controller while hovering over the game art in "My games & apps," and you'll see an option to "Customize games & apps." From there, you'll find the new option to choose the new poster style for artwork, and you can also turn off the icons for Game Pass (and other subscriptions), Xbox Series X|S optimized, and the warning symbol that hovers over games you no longer have access to.

If you need further help, the video above will show you where to find these options. Elsewhere in the update, you can now extend your Gamertag to 15 characters (Latin characters only), up from the previous limit of 12 characters. You'll find an option to change this when you open your Xbox profile and select "Customize profile."

On the home menu of your Xbox console, you'll find a new 'What's New' tab that lets you know exactly what features have been installed on your console in the latest system update. You'll also get a service alert notification at the top of your home menu whenever there's a service issue (for example, should the online multiplayer service go down, you'll see a new alert). In customization, you can now enter a specific hex code for your profile color.

If you're trawling through your friend's profile for some reason, you'll now see mutual friends you have in common (if their privacy settings allow). You can now Wishlist an upcoming game directly from its Game Card, you'll see the specific Xbox controller you're working with via an Xbox Accessories app update, and you can now customize your console theme while offline. https://www.trueachievements.com/customimages/176887.jpg Along with the Xbox 360 game card update from June, you'll now find that the Xbox 360 achievement art has been updated as well and now upscales into "crisp pixel blocks" on consoles, which is certainly a choice.

This update also seemingly makes it so that whenever you boot up a game via Xbox Cloud Gaming, you'll see that the Xbox logo animation has been replaced by game artwork. However, after a bit of testing, I personally wasn't able to see this change at all. It usually hit me with a new still of the Xbox logo, then the usual rocket loading screen (now with an added loading bar), and then played the new Xbox logo animation.

So, not entirely sure what's happening there! And that's it for this month's big console update, barring a few smaller menu tweaks and bug fixes. What do you make of all the changes?

Will you be pre-loading some upcoming Xbox Game Pass games just to enjoy looking at their beautiful poster-style artwork on your console? Let us know down in the comments below.