What you need to know
- As fans wait anxiously for the 'business update' planned for next week, Xbox announced the 1st wave of February Game Pass games.
- The additions include Resident Evil 3, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Madden 24.
- Only two games were announced to be leaving: Galactic Civilizations III (PC) and Opus: Echo of Starsong (Cloud, Console, and PC) on February 15th.
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 the many 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 on Xbox Wire, Xbox Game Pass is 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
- Anuchard (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
February 7th
- Train Sim World 4 (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
February 8
- Madden NFL 24 - (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC)
February 13
- Resident Evil 3 - (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
February 14
- A Little To The Left (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
February 15th
PlateUp! - (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
February 20
- Return to Grace - (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
Leaving soon
- Galactic Civilizations III (PC)
- Opus: Echo of Starsong (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows PC)
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"
Undoubtedly, Game Pass just experienced one of its greatest months ever with the insane and successful release of PalWorld into the service. Xbox announced over 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.
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 the business update promised 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?
