GDC Festival of Gaming is part of the Informa Festivals Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

March 9-13, 2026
Moscone CenterSan Francisco, CA

Agenda

Windows Game Development with Visual Studio 2026 and GitHub Copilot (Presented by Microsoft Xbox)

David Li  (Senior Product Manager, Microsoft)
Hamza Usmani  (Product Manager II, Microsoft)
Location: Room 2009, West Hall
Date: Thursday, March 12
Time: 10:10 am - 11:10 am
Pass Type: Festival Pass, Game Changer Pass - Get your pass now!
Audience Level: All
Track: Game & Production Technology
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: Not Recorded
Audience Level: All
Microsoft Xbox

Developing games on Windows is faster when your tools work together. This session walks through an end-to-end game development workflow, from setting up a repeatable dev environment with Windows Terminal, WinGet, and GitHub Copilot, to reducing daily friction with PowerToys. Discover how integrated agents in Visual Studio accelerate build times, modernize compiler upgrades, and complement code editing with advanced C++ tools. From forking a GitHub project to running WinGet configurations and hitting F5 in Visual Studio, these experiences help you iterate faster and optimize smarter while keeping you in control. Join us to see how Windows and Visual Studio deliver secure, manageable, and AI-driven workflows for modern game development

Takeaway

You will learn how Windows 11 and Visual Studio 2026 combine modern setup tools and AI powered workflows to streamline C++ game development, cut build times, and iteration speed from repo to F5, delivering secure, repeatable, and high performance workflows on Windows.

Intended Audience

Game developers and technical leaders who are interested in the latest advances in Windows development, GitHub Copilot, and Visual Studio.