All it takes is a few short months for subscription services to enact rumored, some might say “feared” choices that will pave the way for larger overhauls in the programs. The key one on the Xbox side of the coin being, of course: when will Games With Gold be phased out? For quite a while, Microsoft maintained that their original Gold subscription program would remain a component of their strategy for the foreseeable future, but that foreseeable future may be coming into sight with the elimination of legacy Xbox 360 and OG Xbox games in October as part of the subscription benefits. In contrast to the newer Game Pass titles, which remain eye-catching even if they aren’t high-profile, the energy has been dramatically slumping with what’s being offered through Game Pass – both Xbox One and legacy games – and seems to be slowing down as a way of approaching this discontinuation.

Let’s take a closer look at this month’s Gold titles and some recent Game Pass additions, but before doing so, head over and Grab a 3-Month Game Pass Ultimate Subscription to get the benefits of the Game Pass titles, the regular Gold sales, and of course online gaming.

XBOX Game Pass Ultimate — New and Upcoming

Inside

Many elements went into the success of LIMBO, the grayscale platformer from developers PLAYDEAD, chief among them being the stark shadowy aesthetic that gave it the visual tempo of a classic horror film. The studio had something to prove with their second project, though: that their talents extend beyond the slick gimmick that certainly accentuated the violence of a young, silhouetted protagonist repeatedly meeting their demise in gloomy shadows. INSIDE proves that there’s plenty more to them than that.

The second game from PLAYDEAD scraps the stark silhouettes and brings depth and dimension to their familiar side-scrolling gameplay mechanics, in which another young boy navigates a terrifying dystopian environment. While there might not be much color in INSIDE and the platform mechanics will feel similar, the sights and sounds come across very differently in this textural stream of nightmarish tableaus. Both critics and players have been absorbed by the insistently grim and grotesque experience, engaged by its tense levels and exploring interpretations of what its dual endings actually mean.  

Watch Dogs 2

Ubisoft’s first run at the Watch Dogs concept ended up being marred by potential that couldn’t quite be satisfied, delivering a surveillance tech stealth game that lacked the expected innovation and freedom boasted by its creators. Once the player cuts through those aspects, however, the overall experience delivers familiar stealth action game design with fresh tools at its disposal, eventually earning a reputation after a few years for being somewhat underrated. With expectations more in check and a list of things to improve, Ubisoft Montreal took a second crack at the concept with Watch Dogs 2.

Armed with a superior protagonist and a more engaging narrative that borrows a little from the likes of Minority Report, this sequel centers on a hacker wrongly accused of committing crimes by the predictive aspects of San Francisco’s electronic infrastructure. From there, Watch Dogs 2 takes the general outline of the first game and juices up the mission structure, the flexibility of the user interface, and the general openness of the game design. Both critics and players acknowledge the focus on those improvements while also dinging it for not refining its suspension of disbelief or not letting go of certain things that just didn’t work, landing on a generally more positive impression than the one left by the original.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

There was a glorious period in the mid-2010s where isometric RPGs made a serious run at a comeback in the absence of many other fantasy-RPing options, largely on the energy of wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns that proved the interest is still very much there. Alongside Pillars of Eternity that provides a “spiritual successor” to the likes of Baldur’s Gate, Torment: Tides of Numenera focuses on doing the same as a love letter to Planescape: Torment, concerning itself with dense, layered storytelling that molds to player choices throughout the adventure.

Taking place far into a future where civilizations have risen and fallen, Torment refocuses on the world in a less-advanced state full of scattered settlements and lingering mysteries from before the setting’s “Ninth Age”.  The protagonist has been constructed as the “vessel” for an ancient man who has discovered how to transfer consciousness from body to body, and it’s up to the protagonist to stop the chain and to defeat a force called “The Sorrow” before it consumes them both.  As expected, the narrative and choice-and-consequence versatility in Torment: Tides of Numenera have been widely celebrated and deemed worth playing for any RPG fan interested in those aspects; however, many critics and players view the clunky mundaneness of its combat and encounters as a big obstacle.

Xbox Games With Gold

For those still riding on the Gold train, we’ve got a foursome of middling, yet decent titles that can certainly be described as eclectic. Over on the Xbox One, we’ve got Calico (August 1-31), a management sim in which the player runs their own … cat café, or more accurately reconstructs one within a town and repopulates it with new furry residents. Some who might be drawn into the pastel, magical aesthetic and cat collection and management might want to give it a go, but critics and players have struggled with glitches and bugs since launch. The other title is ScourgeBringer (August 16 – September-15), a colorful and retro-infused roguelike platformer that delivers the kind of fast-paced challenge and rinse-and-repeat learning gameplay that devotees of the genres adore.

In one of the last months of legacy titles to be offered, at least Microsoft’s going out with a banger or two. This month, they’re offering folks the chance to have Saints Row 2 (August 1-15) — yes, the game that’s routinely priced lower than $5 through digital sales — ready to go on their hard-drives for free. As the middle title between the franchise’s slightly more serious first game and the balls-out humor of Saints Row: The Third (my personal favorite), the second one strikes a pretty satisfying balance between those two spectrums as it imitates the open-world gangster gameplay of Grand Theft Auto with a satirical edge. Finally, there’s Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine (August 16-31), a top-down heist management and strategy game noteworthy for being developed by the sole designer behind Pocketwatch Games.

Xbox Game Pass, Gold Freebies for August Keep Excitement on Inside

There’s a storm coming on the horizon for Xbox’s Game Pass and Games With Gold subscription service, in the form of relatively even competition in the monthly game subscription arena. By the time June rolls around, the comparisons will become much more evenly balanced. Who knows whether a new sub service arms race will kick into gear – here’s hoping both really push it to make their services extra appealing – but until then, it’s unsurprising to see the Xbox take a step back from huge titles at this point.

April is a relatively normal month for Game Pass and Gold, in which the biggest titles are an interactive adventure game and a repeat of a day-and-date sports title that came to the service last year to much more fanfare, and once again with very little attention paid to the waning Games With Gold section of the program.  Let’s take a closer look at the games, but before doing so, head over and Grab a 3-Month Subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at Amazon.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming

Life is Strange: True Colors

The development teams at Dontnod Entertainment and Deck Nine Games have gradually crafted a franchise of meaningful interactive adventures with the Life is Strange series, which incorporate meaningful relationship, political, and sexual identity themes into alluring mysteries. Responsibility for the series moving forward seems to be in the hands of Deck Nine, though – Dontnod plunged deeper into challenging character mysteries with the middling-reviewed Tell Me Why – with Life is Strange: True Colors standing as Deck Nine’s first fresh creation independent from the established characters.  

Players gain control of Alex Chen, a young woman with supernatural “empathy” powers whose traumatic family history looped her into the foster care system, but who later gets to reconnect with her brother in the town of Haven Springs, Colorado. When her brother ends up being murdered shortly after, Alex has to use her powers to help connect with those in connection with Gabe and bring her closer to answers to what happened. Both critics and players appreciate the substance of Alex’s character, the ways that graphics and facial animations enhanced small dramatic conversations, and the intimacy of the supernatural powers, though Life is Strange: True Colors does get dinged for being too effortlessly pleasant and for the branching paths all seeming like they arrive at the same destination.

MLB The Show 2022

Last year around this time, The Show made its debut onto Xbox consoles for the very first time, marking the end of a very long exclusivity deal that kept licensed MLB simulation games locked onto its competitor’s devices. Also at this time last year, the decision was made to also include The Show 2021 through the Game Pass program, a significant move from the growing premium subscription service. With those things together, expectations naturally grew with how San Diego Studio would elevate the quality for this new generation of video game consoles.  Turns out? Not significantly enough to be celebrated by critics or players, who acknowledge its continuing high quality and lack of advancement.

Well, the folks at Xbox have once again made this year’s installment of The Show available through their subscription program, with the game arriving just in time in April for the MLB lockout to end. This iteration changes things up a bit more – a beefed-up stadium creation feature, new play-by-play announcers pulled from ESPN Radio, an expanded version of the shorter career mode – but for the most part critics and players acknowledge that the gameplay’s about the same as it was from the previous iteration.  This isn’t a bad thing exactly, as it remains a deep, engaging and up-to-date sim that can scratch the itch either for a quick game or a lengthy customized career experience.

Weird West

As players continue to get the itch to run through a new Fallout experience – one that isn’t online, mind you – they continue to pursue alternatives, whether it’s similar first-person survival exploration games or top-down, storytelling-rich dystopian RPGs in the vein of Wasteland 3 or Disco Elysium. Weird West, the debut title from WolfEye Studios made up of creative heads from Arkane Studios, aims to tap into the attitude of the latter with some of the vigorousness of the former. The key difference? If you screw up in this warped frontier, you might not be able to fix it.

Weird West allows the player to explore a dark western landscape and gives them the freedom to interact with the environment in a multitude of ways, though the gameplay itself hinges on twinstick shooting action that’s faster-paced and more reactive than similar isometric games. Certain aspects are randomized in the world, yet if something’s destroyed or killed, it stays that way in the game.  That can also apply to the player character, as there’s also a permadeath mode available.  As with many games from this subgenre, both critics and players heap praise upon the world-building, character interactions, and the ambitions of the gameplay systems in Weird World, but have taken issue with the execution of the gameplay and aesthetics, leading to imbalanced RPing and polarizing combat through tech issues.

F1 2021

The most recent season of F1 racing turned out to be one of the most high-stakes and controversial on the books, which was already made complicated by the cancellations of several races due to the pandemic. There’s obviously no way for the team at Codemasters to predict the future when developing their videogame adaptation of F1’s 2021 season, so this title ends up being unique in a bunch of ways, most prominently in the fact that players are still able to engage in the races that were cancelled in Australia, Canada, Japan and China.

On top of that, F1 2021 is also noteworthy for being the first title released after EA acquired Codemasters and took over publishing duties. The move didn’t seem to hamper the developer’s ambitions for this latest title, though, as the inclusion of new career storytelling, multiple player modes, playable professionals, and improved graphics bring the franchise into the new console generation with a fresh coat of paint and a few new parts under the hood. It’s what folks have come to expect from Codemasters, though, and hope to continue expecting it from them in the years to come.

Xbox Games With Gold

The Games With Gold aspect of the subscription service remains a footnote, unfortunately, sporting 2 Xbox One titles and 2 legacy Xbox titles that generate very little enthusiasm for a download … yet still hold some mild intrigue for the fastidious subscriber. Over on the Xbox One, there’s Another Sight (April 1-30), a puzzle-platformer about a blind girl and her cat as they use their strengths and weaknesses to get through challenging environments. While it earned praise for a unique concept, it doesn’t offer enough focused execution or challenge to be regarded as highly as others. Then there’s HUE (April 16 – May 15), another puzzle platformer that merges gameplay concepts from the likes of Outland and Braid, creating a silhouetted play experience based on how the player changes the background shade and interacts with it. Players and critics have been warmer to HUE, praising its aesthetic and polished execution.

On the legacy Xbox side of things, there’s Outpost: Kaloki X (April 1-15), in which the player gets to channel their inner Elon Musk and dream up new living space stations in a fashion similar to SimCity. The more revenue generated by the type of station created by the user, the more they can expand and improve, and the better they can balance their resources.  The other title is MX vs ATV Alive (Apri; 16-30), a middling-reviewed dirt bike and 4-wheeler racing game that players and critics have dinged for being a superficial title that’s got extreme racing across a limited number of courses and little else.

April’s Xbox Game Pass, Gold Newcomers Not Putting On a Big Show

As rumors once again emerge that there are plans in motion for Xbox Live to come to an end, eyes naturally turn to the Game Pass program and wonder if that’s now the correct direction to go in.  Obviously, until online games are all free-to-play on current Xbox consoles, subscribers will either need to keep up their Live service or go for Game Pass Ultimate to continue with that.

However, those who have subscribed to Live Gold for the free monthly games and the exclusive deals via Arcade have been largely unsatisfied for quite some time: the exclusive deals have remained about the same, but the quality of the free titles has continued to plummet.   As their attention seems to be pivoting, so too will ours. Let’s take a closer look at what Microsoft has to offer this month, but before doing so, be sure to Grab a 3-Month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Subscription Card from Amazon.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance

The names “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Baldur’s Gate” obviously conjure different sorts of memories for different game players, but as soon as one hears “Dark Alliance” they’re usually transported to memories of isometric, Diablo-like dungeon crawling, often with a friend. D&D: Dark Alliance wants to tap into those same kinds of memories, but with a more modernized take as its focus. With the focus shifted to a third-person perspective, this version of the hack-‘n-slash RPG concept allows players to gain control of familiar characters from D&D lore as they venture through the Icewind Dale setting.

Multiplayer is available here, but with a catch, as right now players are only allowed to do online co-op with everyone taking on the gameplay from their perspective. This Dark Alliance neglects to include a couch co-op option, arguably the most significant aspect of anything with the “Dark Alliance” name branded on it … and the backlash over it was heard loud and clear, as it has become the developer’s top priority after release. For now, in its current condition, D&D: Dark Alliance has a middling critical reception that amounts to it being a decent fantasy-action experience for online adventuring.

Tropico 6

In a somewhat lowkey fashion, Kalypso has been keeping the Tropico series afloat for over a decade now, largely on the shoulders of development team Haemimont Games. While reviews have never been stellar, the exotic building and management sim has always hit just enough positive notes to justify future installments, allowing players to construct their own visions of developed islands and “rule” them essentially how they see fit through industry and political choices.

Tropico 6 marks the changing of the guard, though, as turn-based gamemakers Limbic Entertainment take over in the latest entry in the franchise. They’ve stuck to the formula that works, spanning several eras for development of the region, but they’ve also implemented a fresh perspective on what’s there to elevate the experience: updated graphics, active response citizens, and the ability to develop several islands connected by bridges instead of just one. While these tweaks don’t amount to a big shift in critical and player response, Tropico does maintain its reputation here by delivering on the same anticipated quality, which seems to be plenty for both old and new players.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

First-person shooters, side-scrolling platformers, fighting games … there are many constants in home gaming, but few are as enduring as the flight simulator.  Microsoft has been delivering a flight sim for nearly 4 decades now, starting in 1982, and the degree of realism in the cockpit mechanisms and the flowing progression of 3D flight was impressive even then.   We’ve come a long way since that point, though, and a simulation experience that’s designed to be as authentic and tactile as possible should be able to deliver in spades among the current climate of graphics and physics.

Asobo Studios have made their first attempt at the franchise with Microsoft Flight Simulator, which has been stripped of numerals and years to let it stand out as a fresh start at the new studio; folks will colloquially refer to it as 2020.  The impression it has left has been pretty remarkable, boasting what critics and players have seemed arguable the most immersive visuals, environmental awareness, and attention paid to detail in gaming to date, accessible to both die-hard simulation fans and casual folks who just want to hop on for a flight every once in a while. Whether any quality will be sacrificed in the transition to the Xbox Series X remains to be seen, but Microsoft seems confident in their new console’s abilities by making it immediately available through Game Pass on July 27.

July’s Xbox Games With Gold

Looped in with the Game Pass Ultimate version of the program, players also have access to the legacy Xbox Games With Gold slate of monthly freebies, which has continued on a steady downward slope over the past year or so. This month once again doesn’t feature any attention-grabbing AAA titles, focusing its attention to 2 indies for the Xbox One offerings.  Planet Alpha (July 1-31) features fluid platform puzzle-solving as a weary explorer sneaks through a vibrant alien landscape and evades hostile creatures,  amounting to a laid-back gaming experience that critics and players both claim is more about immersion than challenge. Rock of Ages III: Make a Break (July 16-Aug-15) combines the rolling puzzle-solving aspects of Katamari and Super Monkey Ball with the mechanics of a tower-defense game, with a historically minded sense of humor (Monty Python-esque?) that gives it even more varied personality.   

On the legacy side of things, there’s Conker: Live and Reloaded (July 1-15), a decently-reviewed upgraded remake of the raucous N64 title Bad Fur Day that’s probably more noteworthy for the edits put in place for the new version – a notable increase in bleeped language – than its improvements. It retains its sense of humor, though, and that’s what matters when anthropomorphic animals are running around engaged in warfare with one another. The other is an incredibly safe, but welcome inclusion: Midway Arcade Origins (July 16-31), a compilation of classic arcade titles that’ll put a smile on just about anyone’s face for a brief period. Classics like Defender, Joust, and Rampage will be at player’s fingertips whenever they like, while other fun vintage experience like the early dungeon crawler Gauntlet and the high-personality, top-down shooter Total Carnage.

July’s Xbox Game Pass and Gold Titles: Adventures by Land, Sea, Sky

A new way to buy an Xbox One arrived today and it’s called Xbox All Access. Utilizing a 0% payment plan over 24 months, new Xbox One owners have the option of an Xbox One S console at $22 a month or an Xbox One X at $35 a month. That includes 24 months of Xbox Live as well as Xbox Game Pass.

When compared to MSRP, Xbox All Access appears to be a decent discount. For instance, total MSRP for 24 months of Xbox Live & the Xbox One Game Pass would be $360.

The retail cost of an Xbox One S is $300 ($660 total), Xbox One X is $500 ($860 total). Xbox All Access for the S would be $528 ($132 less than MSRP) or $840 ($20 less than MSRP) for the X. Of course, when sale prices are factored in, the pricing advantage on Xbox All Access falls apart.

Here are the typical sale prices you can find throughout the year:

• Xbox Live 12-year card: $40 (Example)
• Xbox Game Pass 6-month card: $30 (Example)
• Xbox One S: $185 – $200 (Example)
• Xbox One X: $350 – $400 (Example)

Based off the last decade of our historical deal data, you will see these type of deals increase in frequency as we get closer to the holiday shopping season. During November, expect these deals every week with peak volume between November 19 – November 26 2018.

Xbox Live & Game Pass are stackable, so you can buy all 24-months during a single sale if you want. You will end up paying $200 total ($160 less than MSRP). When added everything up, you will end up paying $400 total for the Xbox One S (at worst) and $600 for the Xbox One X. That’s $128 cheaper than Xbox All Access for the S and $240 cheaper on the X.

Also, be aware that the financing for Xbox All Access runs through Dell Preferred Account. While they won’t charge you interest if you make all payments on time and pay off the balance by 24 months, you will get charged interest if you miss a payment or there’s a balance remaining after 24 months. APR on these accounts is typically an astronomical 19.24% to 29.99%.

Xbox All Access is here and it’s a terrible deal