Resident Evil 3, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Madden 24, and more come to Xbox Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass games for the first half of February have been announced and there are some great games headed to the service.
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What you need to know
It’s amazing how much can change in a few weeks. Xbox was on top of the world just a few weeks ago after the successful developer direct, but now the entire gaming world seems to be waiting to get clarification on themany rumors, such as Starfield releasing on PlayStation 5 and others, regarding Xbox games going multiplatform. In the midst of that, life must go on. Announced onXbox Wire,Xbox Game Passis again bringing some great additions to Xbox Game Pass, Cloud, and PC Game Pass.
One of the most interesting games from today’s announcement is Tales of Arise for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is that it is mentioned in the headline of the blog post, but not in any of the actual images. It might be announced later that this game is not coming, but for now, it may be still on its way this month. This game did well with critics and was lauded as one of the best games in the Tales series.
Other great games on the list I’m looking forward to playing are Return To Grace and Resident Evil 3. If you’re one of those who wait for Madden to hit Game Pass each year, then you will get to play out the ending to the Super Bowl yourself when it drops into Game Pass in just 2 days.
Here’s the full list of games being added to Xbox Game Pass:
Today
February 7th
February 8
February 13
February 14
February 15th
PlateUp! -(Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
February 20
Leaving soon
If you enjoy either of these games or think you might want to play it in the future, make sure to pick it up with the Game Pass 20% discount while you still can.
A decent start to February, but lacking in “day one titles”
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Undoubtedly, Game Pass just experienced one of its greatest months ever with the insane and successful release ofPalWorldinto the service. Xboxannouncedover 7 million players on Xbox and the biggest ever 3rd party launch in Game Pass. Coming off of the heels of that success, the February 1st half slate of games is decent, but nothing I’m dying to play.
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The glaring omission from these lists of games, that just gets more and more worrisome as time goes on, is the lack of any Activision, Blizzard, or King games. I personally decided to buy Diablo 4 on Xbox when it was released, knowing that once the deal went through it would hit Game Pass and I could finally play it on my PC. Hopefully, this will be one of the questions answered in thebusiness updatepromised by Phil Spencer yesterday on X (Twitter.)
Xbox seems to realize that they are missing a key ‘day one release’ in February as in the blog post it is highlighted that MLB The Show 24 is coming to Game Pass on Day one, but the game doesn’t release until March 19th. While there aren’t a ton of games releasing right now, it would be the perfect time to bring over some of Activision and Blizzard’s catalog.
I’ll likely try out most of the games that were announced today, as they all seem to be quality titles. What do you think about the February lineup of games? Are there any you’re excited to play?
Colton is a seasoned cybersecurity professional that wants to share his love of technology with the Windows Central audience. When he isn’t assisting in defending companies from the newest zero-days or sharing his thoughts through his articles, he loves to spend time with his family and play video games on PC and Xbox. Colton focuses on buying guides, PCs, and devices and is always happy to have a conversation about emerging tech and gaming news.
