The Game Pass library is constantly evolving, with over 100 games spread across Xbox One and PC. Here are the best games on Xbox Game Pass to get you started.
Xbox Game Pass is only getting bigger. With over 100 heavy-hitting games on the roster and promises of Project xCloud integration soon, it’s clear that Microsoft is banking on Game Pass with the upcoming release of the Xbox Series X. That’s a solid tactic, too, with Game Pass offering day-and-date releases of first-party games, as well as a slew of third-party offerings. Although you can blindly pick a game from the lineup and have a good time, we’ve dug through the library to bring you the best games on Xbox Game Pass. Further reading After a long run on Game Pass, Rockstar decided to remove Grand Theft Auto V from the service. Thankfully, it replaced one of its massively open-world games with another. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a masterpiece by nearly all accounts, and with the amount of content it has to offer, it’s worth the price of a Game Pass subscription alone. Set 12 years before Red Dead Redemption, you play as Arthur Morgan, a thief who’s part of the Van der Linde gang that John Marston is also a part of. After a train heist gone wrong, Arthur and the gang decide it’s time to end their lives of crime and retire. That transition, though, doesn’t come without resistance. Read our Red Dead Redemption 2 review Game Pass has seen its fair share of Souls-like games, though none of them are as good as The Surge 2. Deck13’s sci-fi take on the Dark Souls formula is much more than a B-grade attempt, offering excellent combat mechanics, a unique setting, and a semi-open world. The game takes place in Jericho City, and although it’s not completely open at first, you’re free to explore in any way you wish. Combat is the standard affair for Souls-like games, outside of The Surge 2′s limb targeting system. Instead of just hitting an enemy, you can target a certain body part that’s unshielded. In addition to taking off more health, hitting an exposed limb will allow you to cut it off, stealing whatever cybernetic enhancement is attached. Platinum Games, the same studio behind Bayonetta and Astral Chain, has a long history of making flashy, over-the-top action games. Nier: Automata, however, is the studio’s magnum opus. Featuring the same frantic combat as the studio’s previous games, Nier: Automata goes a step further with an engrossing story, a beautiful setting, and multiple endings. If the post-apocalyptic world and robot deities aren’t enough to hook you, then the combat will. Nier: Automata makes you feel like a badass, slicing through robots with ease while your drone fighter backs you up. Combat encounters are comically intense, making the moment-to-moment gameplay deeply satisfying. Read our Nier: Automata review A Plague Tale: Innocence follows the journey of Amicia and Hugo De Rune, two children of the royal Kingdom of France in 1349. Any history buff knows why that year is important: It’s the center of the bubonic plague in France. After a troubling event at the palace, Amicia and Hugo escape, hunted by the Inquisition. It’s unclear why, at least in the opening moments, but murmurs from surrounding villagers make the cause clear: The disease has something to do with Hugo. Gameplay-wise, A Plague Tale plays the role of a stealth game. The stealth mechanics are interesting — especially when certain vermin are brought into the mix — but the artificial intelligence (AI) falls flat. Still, the game keeps the moment-to-moment gameplay engaging. The story is what stands out here, setting the stakes for each encounter with the Inquisition. Your AI opponents couldn’t see a rock flying directly in their face, but with the surrounding narrative, A Plague Tale sets up a world you want to play in, no matter how desolate it may be. Outer Wilds is a game you really shouldn’t know anything about. Focused entirely on exploration and discovery, Outer Wilds provides an open-world mystery with the only solution being to continue looking. Even a short synopsis could be considered a spoiler, so stop reading this section if you want to go in fresh. Simply put, you play as an Astronaut who’s a member of the Outer Wilds Space Program. After 22 minutes of in-game time, the sun will explode into a supernova, ending the game. You’ll restart right away — with the same,22-minute time limit — allowing you to explore the solar system and unravel the mysteries that lurk around you. Gris is better defined as an experience than a video game. You should play it without knowing anything, so if the screenshot above looks interesting, stop reading and download it now. For those who aren’t convinced, let us give you a rundown. You play as Gris, a young girl who’s recently gone through a traumatic experience. Trapped in her own reality, Gris must restore the colors to her world one at a time. As you progress through the game restoring colors, you’ll earn new abilities, allowing you to traverse the hand-crafted levels with ease. Beautiful, provocative, and transformational, Gris shows just how powerful the medium of video games can be. It’s been four years since No Man’s Sky hit the PlayStation 4 and PC after arriving on Xbox in 2018, but the game continues to feel fresh thanks to continuous updates from developer Hello Games that offer compelling content that keeps players on their toes. Perhaps more than any other game in this roundup, No Man’s Sky illustrates freedom in a video game. It allows you to explore its ever-growing environment and create your own little slice of happiness in the digital world. But like any good game, it’s the combination of combat, exploration, and interactions with fellow players that keeps you coming back. Indeed, No Man’s Sky might have one of the most compelling communities anywhere. Sea of Thieves puts you in the shoes of a pirate, and not in the same way as Black Flag does (even though that’s still one of the best Assassin’s Creed games ever). It’s not just an open-world action adventure game with a pirate skin — Sea of Thieves is a pirate simulator. From looting unexplored islands to piloting your ship with a group of friends, Rare manages to gamify every aspect of Sea of Thieves, making each game task engaging no matter how mundane it may seem. More importantly, the gamification leads to a sense of freedom. Nothing in Sea of Thieves is stringent, from the loose leveling system to the Tall Tales that make up the campaign. You’re free to explore and tackle objectives in any way you see fit, or simply ignore objectives all together. Although a lonely experience on your own, Sea of Thieves is a must-play with a group of friends.
