Game Pass is a gaming subscription for Xbox consoles and Windows computers. Users get the basic version, which includes over 400 games from Microsoft and its partners.
The most advanced version of Game Pass is called Ultimate. It provides access to a subscription with games publisher Electronic Arts and cloud service xCloud.
To simplify, Game Pass is the video game equivalent of Netflix. There is exclusive permanent content released by Microsoft, as well as temporarily available from other companies: it can be removed from the library after a couple of months after its inclusion in the subscription. Like in the gambling lobby with thousands of slots, for more details check this NationalCasino.com, you don’t need to buy games separately within Game Pass.
It’s easy to get lost among this variety. That’s why we’ve chosen 12 games that are definitely worth trying for subscribers.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
The premier Xbox franchise and one of the most important shooters in history. The Master Chief Collection contains every game in the main series through 2012: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4.
The genetically modified human John-117, better known as Master Chief, saves humanity from Covenant attacks. This is an alliance of aliens taking over the entire galaxy. The protagonist should destroy enemy forces on earth and in space.
The first Halo was released in 2001 and is a revolutionary shooter. It made health regeneration and a limited number of portable weapons a standard in video games.
The series has been praised for its clever enemies, tiered levels with lots of approaches to enemies, the ability to use combat vehicles, and engaging and lively multiplayer. Halo also boasts an elaborate universe that is constantly being updated with books, comic books, and TV series.
Game Pass includes not only The Master Chief Collection but also the subsequent two installments, Halo 5: Guardians and Halo Infinite. The latter features an open world that can be explored without restriction.
Forza Horizon 5
The newest and the most ambitious part of the other flagship Xbox series. You play as a participant of Horizon Festival races in Mexico: you win the competitions, collect cars of famous brands, perform tests and help the organizers to arrange events in different parts of the country.
Forza Horizon isn’t a typical race where you can’t go beyond the tracks. It’s a game with a large open world available for exploration. You can ride anything that drives: trucks, jeeps or classic cars. Everything is licensed and looks great.
Plus, Horizon 5 has all four seasons, and the time of day and weather change dynamically. You can’t take your eyes off the scenery of Mexico in winter or summer. Now it’s the best race for relaxed gaming sessions. It used to be the title of the Need for Speed series.
It Takes Two
Spouses Cody and May decide to get a divorce. Their daughter Rose doesn’t want to put up with her mom and dad’s whims, so she makes a simple wish: that her parents stay together. The wish suddenly comes true: so Cody and May are transformed into living dolls. In order to regain their human form, they must do the impossible – find a common language and resolve the crisis in their relationship.
Technically, It Takes Two is a platformer with puzzles to solve together. But it’s not quite that. The game changes genres and turns into a shooter and fighting game or into third-person action. This is where the fun begins.
The passage of It Takes Two resembles a course of family therapy. You can only play in pairs, on the network or sitting on the same couch. To win you will have to find a common language with your playing partner. Cody and May teach you to value relationships more: It Takes Two is fun to play with your loved ones, family, and friends.
Game Pass has A Way Out, a previous game by the same studio about the escape of two prisoners from prison. It’s not as varied as It Takes Two, but it’s also playable with just the two of us. It has less therapy and more crime drama.
Alien: Isolation
The daughter of the protagonist of the Alien franchise has been searching for her missing mother for years. She is almost ready to accept her loss when suddenly she is informed that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation has found the Nostromo ship’s flight recorder and delivered it to a decommissioned trading station. The girl goes there, unaware that a monstrous xenomorph is waiting for her there. The heroine has to hide from the Alien.
Isolation is the only full-fledged horror game based on Alien. The developers of Creative Assembly studio were guided by the original Ridley Scott film in everything – from the visuals to the scenery.
The events of the game fit so well into the franchise universe that it can be called the best part of “Alien” since 1986. It’s also generally one of the best games in the genre: few horror games can scare as much as Isolation. The fact is that the Alien in the game is unscripted and therefore unpredictable.
The alien is guided by a believable artificial intelligence. This means the xenomorph explores the station as he pleases, each time taking a new route. It’s impossible to predict its movements. You’ll just have to hide – and beat the monster away with a flamethrower from time to time.
Crusader Kings III
The third part of the famous series by Paradox Interactive, famous for Hearts of Iron, Victoria and Europa Universalis strategies. At the beginning of the game, you have to choose a starting date and one of the many states – for example, the Republic of Novgorod or the Kingdom of Norway. The player has to lead the dynasty through the centuries to make the country truly great.
Crusader Kings III is much more complex and elaborated than other strategies like Civilization and Total War. The ruler has to monitor not only the state of his territories, but also his subordinates: their attitude towards you, their conspiracies, and so on. Not only military and diplomatic victories affect the outcome of the game but also relationships with advisors, heirs, and even healers. The latter can cure deadly diseases or, conversely, collude and poison.
Gears 5
In 2006, the first Gears of War turned the genre of third-person console action games upside down. Characters learned to roll and stick to cover at the press of a button, making battles positional. Players had to not only shoot enemies, but also assess their surroundings in terms of attack and defense.
It was so successful that soon other developers began to copy the mechanics and game-design solutions of the original Gears of War. So it turned from a genre superhit into a new industrial standard, on the basis of which the games are still released today.
By the fifth part the series has shortened the name to the laconic Gears and changed the developer. The original trilogy was handled by Fortnite creators Epic Games Studios. After them, the series fell into the hands of the Canadian company The Coalition. As a result, the fourth Gears of War was more of a technology run-in with the storyline on the verge of a remake. And only with Gears 5 did the studio finally show what they were capable of.
The Coalition has created the perfect positional action game, which still has no competitors, although three years have passed since its release. The authors managed to improve and refresh the concept of the original Gears of War. For example, in Gears 5, we got the similarity to open-world, while before the protagonists were running in corridor-like labyrinths. Moreover, the studio added interactivity to the environment: sometimes it’s easier to shoot the monsters in the crumbling ice than to kill them one by one. The weather effects, introduced in the fourth edition, affect the gameplay even more in the fifth part.
In Gears 5, the story has once again acquired the inherent scope of the series. Still, it is not for nothing that players are put before the most important plot choice in the finale – for the first time in the history of the franchise.
Hitman Trilogy
Agent 47 is an assassin who carries out the most dangerous assignments to eliminate politicians, businessmen and crime bosses. He gets creative in his work: he disguises himself in the uniform of his opponents and uses his surroundings. This is what he has been doing since 2000, when the first game in the series, Hitman: Agent 47, came out.
The games of Hitman series are the social stealth-action games: the protagonist is not hiding in the shadows, he is hiding in the open air. He can pretend to be the cook or the musician or the businessman.
The essence of gameplay has not changed, but in the new releases significantly increased in scope. For example, a single task can now stretch for several hours because of the giant levels. And there are so many different ways to kill that players compete with each other in the ingenuity of completing tasks.
Mortal Kombat 11
A new installment of the long-running Mortal Kombat franchise from the 1990s.
In 2011 the series was restarted with modern standards: made the arena environment interactive, added more spectacular attacks and increased the degree of brutality. Mortal Kombat 11 has an updated list of available fighters with a changed combat system. However, the primary goal has remained the same: to defeat opponents in the arenas in various modes.
According to the plot god of thunder Ryden and his fighting buddies must stop Cronica – mysterious Timekeeper, who wants to get rid of the forces of good and restore order in the universe.
Since part nine, the gameplay formula hasn’t changed much: it’s still a spectacular fighting game that’s perfect for parties. Besides, the eleventh part introduces a three-person network mode.
In the paid add-ons Joker, Terminator, and John Rambo were added to the list of fighters – for the sake of them you can buy the full edition of the game with the subtitle Ultimate.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
This is an action game about the misguided team of Guardians of the Galaxy. The game is in no way connected with the James Gunn movies, it is a standalone story about the adventures of the Guardians in the vastness of space. Guardians of the Galaxy does not require familiarity with the universe, but comic book fans will be glad to see familiar characters: Adam Warlock, Lady Hellbender, Fin-Fan-Fum and the Inhabitant of Darkness.
The Guardians are drawn into a conflict on which the fate of the entire galaxy and its inhabitants depend. Peter Quill, the protagonist of the game, will have to travel to amazingly beautiful planets, fight with intelligent jellyfish and resolve conflicts arising in his motley and very squabbling team.
This is one of the most spectacular adventures of recent years, which can be put on a par with famous action games like Uncharted and God of War 2018. The characters are constantly chatting, joking, and poking fun at each other and the player. Guardians of the Galaxy in general does not take itself too seriously: during the battle, you can call a flyer and cheer up your comrades with some pathetic speech.
Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the best superhero games ever made. We have to thank Eidos Montreal studio, which previously created Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Sea of Thieves
A multiplayer game where you, as a pirate, explore the seas and islands and discover their many secrets. Monitor the course on the map and compass, set sails, search for ammunition and provisions, and patch up holes in time after encountering an enemy or a rock from nowhere.
In 2024, Rare Studios’ game is one of the best ways to spend time with your friends. Sea of Thieves has both cool story quests and daily activities: then the map will appear fort with skeletons guarding the treasure, then there is a ghostly flotilla, then a terrible boss appears, throwing meteors from the sky.
The game generates memorable stories. Friends can lock you in the hold and get into an unnecessary skirmish with other pirates. Or your shipwrecked rescuers can trick you, steal valuable information, and send you to the mercy of the sharks.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
Epic space-opera about humanity and alien races fighting Reapers – biosynthetic creatures that every 50,000 years destroy all organic life in the universe. The protagonist, Captain Shepard, must unite the galaxy and save its inhabitants from genocide. He will have to perform dangerous tasks on different planets, unravel political intrigues and gain the support of their inhabitants in the fight against the Reapers.
Mass Effect is a large-scale elaborated universe with a lot of books and comics. The adventures of Captain Shepard and his crew are memorable with interesting conflicts. Not only aliens but also shadowy organizations, corrupt politicians and disillusioned collaborators oppose the protagonist. Not only the fate of individuals but also of entire species, depends on the player’s actions.
Outer Wilds
In Outer Wilds, the player will try on the role of a representative of a race of four-eyed humanoids that has just entered the age of space exploration. At the very beginning, you’ll get a spaceship and go to explore the solar system consisting of several miniature planets. However, the hero immediately encounters a strange anomaly: the humanoid explorer is pulled into a time loop.
It’s better to know nothing about Outer Wilds beforehand – it’s enough to read a brief description of the plot and watch the trailer. While trying to get out of the loop you visit different planets again and again, explore the ruins of a missing civilization and gradually find out what happened to the solar system.
