Xbox Game Pass is unquestionably worth the subscription fee, but which of the available games are the best use of your hard drive space?
Microsoft’s Game Pass service is easily worth the price of admission. Many might balk at the concept of having their video game library locked behind a subscription service, but the fact is subscribers get access to an incredible selection of titles spanning from indie darlings to triple-A blockbusters for a surprisingly affordable monthly fee.
With such a dizzying array of fantastic titles on display, it can be a daunting task deciding which ones are worth a player’s time. Given that the cost of entry is taken care of with the subscription fee, the most pressing matter is determining the best use of your hard drive space. Thankfully, the diamonds of this collection are readily apparent. Here’s a look at the greatest games that Xbox Game Pass has to offer.
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The selections listed here will include games available on EA Play, which is included with a subscription to Game Pass Ultimate. Halo: The Master Chief Collection
The adventures of the Master Chief have never been as accessible as they are in the Master Chief Collection. This gathering of Halo games is the definitive collection of 343 Industries’ endeavors to immortalize the series. Not only is every mainline Halo game (not counting Halo 5: Guardians) included, but the fantastic Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach were added as well.
From beloved campaign co-op to thrilling Firefight matches to iconic multiplayer modes, the Master Chief Collection has it all. Anyone who thinks of themselves as a Halo fan should consider it a must-play from Xbox Game Pass. And for those who have never completed the Master Chief’s saga, there is no better way to finish the fight. Cocoon
Jaw-dropping puzzle games can be hard to find. We’re talking about titles that create innovative mechanics which task players with thinking in the terms the game presents. Puzzle game greats like Portal and Superliminal do this to perfection. If you didn’t “think with Portals” while playing Valve’s classic, you were going to get interminably stuck, but once you did, clever thinking and problem solving were open to you.
Cocoon, a puzzle game made by one of the developers behind Limbo and Inside, deserves a spot alongside these phenomenal games. With a minimalist yet alien level design, you control a little character that transports orbs to various devices. These orbs contain entire worlds, and you can seamlessly move in between these worlds. As you travel further and further along, you must dive into these orbs while carrying other orbs, thereby placing a world within a world.
It sounds confusing when described, but Cocoon does a fantastic job introducing this recursive world concept to you. And we can’t understate how amazingly seamless going in between orbs is. Cocoon is a game you have to play to understand how awesome it is, and it is currently one of the major highlights of the Xbox Game Pass library. Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer casts you as a ferry master shepherding souls to their final resting grounds. It sounds grim, but behind its premise is an incredibly hopeful game about love, loss, and growth. The game’s art design allows it to walk the line between tackling a depressing subject and remaining the soothing experience players expect from a management sim.
Spiritfarer wears a lot of hats. Premise aside, at its core, it’s a light farming and relationship sim. It mixes and matches a lot of elements fans of the genre will be familiar with, including crop planning, gift-giving, and plenty of crafting. It has a lovely world to explore, and even some light platforming thrown in for good measure. Lies Of P
No one does a Souls game like the creators of this “genre” themselves, FromSoftware. But damn does Lies of P come incredibly close to reaching the same level of polish and iconic design as its inspirations. You take on the role of Pinocchio, a Victorian-apparelled stringless puppet who makes for a very silent protagonist, but this take on the fairy tale is much grimmer. The fictional city of Krat has been overrun by frenzied puppets, and you must navigate past blood-soaked cobblestone streets and gear-strewn alleyways to find your creator, Geppetto.
The combat is familiar if you’re a fan of Bloodborne and Sekiro, as are most of the trappings of a Soulsborne game. However, a few changes have been made to the formula that shine a spotlight on how well Lies of P stands out from the crowd of other Soulslike titles. From Ergo (the Souls or Blood Echoes equivalent in Lies of P) waiting for you outside of boss arenas to blade and handle upgrades being separate, a variety of alterations have made Lies of P a delightful, if challenging tale to experience if you’ve been longing for more Soulslike action since Elden Ring released. Quake II
Seemingly having taken it upon themselves to preserve the mid-to-late 90s FPS boom with a modern sheen, Nightdive Studios has graced us with yet another remaster-done-right with Quake II. A tried-and-true classic from the old id Software catalog, Quake II’s original release furnished players with an extensive, and at the time, somewhat uniquely interconnected single-player campaign, co-op support, and as is requisite to the Quake IP, a bombastic and fast-paced arena multiplayer experience.
But Quake II’s 2023 remaster is so much more than an updated port. Sure, it packs in the usual bits and bobs: a graphical tune up, modernized UI and QOL features, multiplayer support, and the like. But this thing comes packed with every expansion pack ever released, a brand-new single-player campaign developed by MachineGames, and perhaps among its most novel inclusions, the entirety of the Nintendo 64 port’s version of the campaign — an experience entirely unique to the N64 until now.
The whole package arriving on Game Pass as soon as it was announced is really just the cherry on top of this lovingly crafted late 90s time capsule. Starfield
The anticipation for Starfield prior to its release was immense, and the weight of expectations from fans eager for Bethesda’s latest RPG must have caused more pressure than performing a space walk without a suit.
