Microsoft News Articles
Thursday9th Oct 2025
News Free Play Days: Try These Xbox Games For Free (October 9-12)
Your latest batch of free trials
Xbox Free Play Days has landed! We've got a good batch of games playable on the service this week, alongside that huge Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 trial that goes live today as well. You can play the whole COD campaign with that one, and it's available to all Xbox players! <related ids="192306"> Without further...
News Two Classic PC RPGs Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (October 9)
Already on console, now on PC
Welcome to your latest Xbox Game Pass roundup! Today, the PC library is growing with the addition of two classic RPGs, but don't worry console players - these are actually already in the console XGP library! <related ids="183385"> Here's some more information on those two new additions to PC Game Pass:
Wednesday8th Oct 2025
News These 12 Games Are Coming To Xbox Game Pass (October 8-21)
Your first wave of October additions
Microsoft has today unveiled its latest roundup of new Xbox Game Pass titles, a week on from overhauling the service with an Ultimate price bump and two refreshed tiers in Essential and Premium. Before we get into the full list of titles coming to XGP over the next few weeks, we want to remind folks to be aware...
News Xbox's Playground Games Grew Substantially In 2024 To Prepare For Fable & Forza Horizon 6
70+ new employees
Xbox developer Playground Games has a big year on its hands in 2026 — with both Fable and Forza Horizon 6 due to release — and it seems the British studio has been growing substantially to prepare for these two huge releases. The team's financial statements for 2024 have just been released publicly, and they confirm that the...
News The Full Black Ops 6 Campaign Will Be Entirely Free For A Week, Starting This Thursday
Taking Battlefield 6 head on?
The Call of Duty team has detailed its latest free trial ahead of the series' yearly Halloween update, and for the first time in franchise history, the entire Black Ops 6 campaign will be free-to-play for a week on Xbox. Yep, starting October 9th and running through October 16th, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is hosting...
News Ninja Gaiden 4 Is Now Available To Preload On Xbox Game Pass
And it's a reasonable download size!
We've got a big month ahead of us when it comes to Xbox published titles, and ahead of its Game Pass launch later in the month, Ninja Gaiden 4 is now ready to preload on Xbox Series X|S. We're looking at a modest 37GB install for this one on console, with the PC version coming in slightly higher at just north of...
Tuesday7th Oct 2025
News Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Introduces 'The Minecraft Festival' On Xbox This Week
"Minecraft is joining the race"
Back in the summer, we covered Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and its Minecraft crossover when SEGA announced an official release date for its new kart racer - and today, the team has revealed exactly when you can partake in this big MC event on Xbox.
News Activision Lays Into Black Ops 7 Hackers As 97% Of Early Access Beta Cheats Shut Down Instantly
A monumental effort from the COD team
The Black Ops 7 beta is now in full swing as Microsoft opens the doors for anyone and everyone to jump in, and as the tech test moves on from its early access period, Activision has provided a huge update on how it's handled cheaters during the first few days of the beta. The COD anti-cheat team says that...
News Two Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (October 7)
Your first additions of a busy month!
Welcome to your first Xbox Game Pass update for October 2025! Today, we have two new additions landing on XGP, ahead of what's looking like a stacked month for the service. Here's some more information on today's two new Xbox Game Pass titles, and you can check out what else is coming this month via the link...
Saturday4th Oct 2025
Talking Point How Do You Feel About Ubisoft+ Classics Being Added To Game Pass Ultimate?
Good perk, bad perk, somewhere in the middle?
In order to pack out its newly price-hiked Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, Microsoft is bundling in a couple of bonus subscriptions for users - one of those being Fortnite Crew in November and the other bein
News Here's What Might Leave Xbox Game Pass In November 2025
Some early predictions
What's leaving Xbox Game Pass in November 2025? Well, Microsoft hasn't confirmed anything just yet, but based on some games that were added to the service this time last year, we can at least make a few predictions ahead of time. We know that a lot of Xbox users want more advance notice of games leaving Xbox Game Pass, but...
Friday3rd Oct 2025
News Xbox Game Studios Titles Up For Several Awards At Golden Joysticks 2025
Indiana Jones, South of Midnight & more involved
Voting for this year's Golden Joystick Awards has gone live today, and while Xbox misses out on any Game of the Year nominations this time around, several of its titles are up for various other awards at the 2025 edition of the show. Xbox's Deep South-inspired adventure South of Midnight is up for...
News Xbox Ditches Majority Of Its Game Pass DLC Discounts As Part Of Service Revamp
Update: Microsoft shares a statement
So, earlier today we spotted some news doing the rounds about Call of Duty DLC no longer being discounted for Xbox Game Pass members - and after doing a little digging, this appears to be part of the broader Game Pass shift from Microsoft. Basically, the majority of individual DLC packs for Game Pass games are...
Thursday2nd Oct 2025
News Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Will Now Get 75+ Day One Titles Per Year, A '50% Increase' On Before
"That’s a 50 percent increase over last year"
A major part of Microsoft's new plan to cram more benefits into its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription is to double down on day one releases in that top tier, and as it turns out, the team claims that we're talking a 50% increase on day one Game Pass additions over the next 12 months - and for every...
News 'Price Increases Are Never Fun For Anybody' Says Xbox Exec Defending Game Pass Changes
"We're listening to the feedback of players..."
It's safe to say that yesterday's Game Pass changes haven't exactly gone down well with Xbox fans, particularly that huge price increase for Ultimate subscribers - and now we've spotted some Microsoft exec quotes that dropped alongside those changes, including a mention that the team is "listening to...
News Xbox Users Seeing Game Pass Dashboard Ad That Mentions Price Hike & New Benefits
And a new date existing subscribers might find useful
Yesterday, Microsoft dropped some megaton news with its complete overhaul of Xbox Game Pass, and literally the day after this big switch happened, folks are beginning to see new pop-up dashboard ads that give an overview of the service's price and feature changes. As first spotted by Tom Warren...
News Free Play Days: Try These Xbox Games For Free (October 2-5)
Update: Ready or Not has been removed
Welcome to another round of Xbox Free Play Days! Microsoft is keeping the program running as part of its fresh Xbox Game Pass plans - and they're kicking off this new era with a big week of free games to try. Mega-popular shooter Ready Or Not is definitely the headline act here; VOID Intera
Wednesday1st Oct 2025
News Xbox Game Pass Premium May Be The Best-Value Tier Right Now, With Almost 50 Games Added
Is this the new go-to?
Well, the dust is sort of settling on all of today's fresh Game Pass news, and while the list of new benefits afforded to Ultimate subscribers is no-doubt cool, we reckon XGP Premium might now be the best-value tier for Xbox console players. <related ids="188807"> Coming in at $14.99/£10.99 a month (compared to...
News 40+ Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (October 1)
An absolute MEGA drop
As you may have already seen by now, Microsoft has announced some massive changes to Xbox Game Pass including a complete overhaul of the service's tiers - and that's brought us a big refresh to the main Ultimate library starting today, October 1st. The bulk of these new additions are from
News 'Ubisoft+ Classics' Joins Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Hugely Expanding The Library
A massive new perk for GPU members
As part of today's massive overhaul to Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft has integrated the 'Ubisoft+ Classics' library into its Game Pass Ultimate tier, in a similar fashion to EA Play. Just like that EA Play library, Ubisoft+ Classics focuses on the company's back catalogue, with more than 30 Ubisoft titles featured...
News Four Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass Essential (October 1)
Update: Microsoft has changed things around a bit
Welcome to your latest Xbox Game Pass update! Today's refresh focuses purely on the Xbox Game Pass Core library, which grows by three new titles as Microsoft builds out the service. These are three excellent games as well, with the always-popular Disney Dreamlight Valley jo
News Sarah Bond Says Fans Will Soon Be Able To Play PlayStation Studios Games On An Xbox Device
She's talking about ROG Xbox Ally, of course
Much has been said recently about Microsoft's push to put Xbox games onto rival platforms, including PS5, and with the recent announcement of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 moving over, the team clearly isn't slowing down. However, we now know that the definition of 'Xbox' is changing, and Sarah Bond has...
News Grounded 2 Gets Its First Major Update On Xbox Game Pass
Say hello to our hairy and scary friend
Obsidian Entertainment has just dropped its first major content update for Grounded 2 in early access, and this one is for you fans of our eight-legged friends out there. The team's new 'Hair and Scary' update introduces AXL; the "giant tarantula boss" who's made made their way into Brookhollow Park this...
Tuesday30th Sep 2025
News Three New Games Confirmed For PC Game Pass Over The Next Few Months
Starting mid-October!
Xbox has quietly announced a small batch of new additions to its PC Game Pass library recently, with the first of these coinciding with the ROG Xbox Ally release on October 16th! We haven't heard much chatter about these online thus far, so we thought we'd gather up all of these recent announcements down below and let you know...
News Xbox Boss Names Four Franchises That Fans Keep Asking To See Revived
Any guesses?
In a recent interview at Tokyo Game Show 2025, Xbox boss Phil Spencer talked to IGN Japan about a number of different gaming-related topics - naming four classic Xbox franchises that fans often ask to see revived by Team Green along the way. In the fairly freeform chat which saw Phil answer a few laid back question
News Halo Studios Will Talk More About Future Projects At World Championship Next Month
"We’ll be on the Main Stage to talk about it"
In a new blog post titled 'Road to HaloWC 2025', the newly-rebranded Halo Studios has confirmed that it will once again talk about future projects during its World Championship event next month. The team hinted at this back in June when it said it was "looking forward to continuing the conversation"...
News Microsoft Adds Xbox 360 Title To Game Pass Today (September 30)
Featuring Lara Croft
Welcome to your latest Xbox Game Pass update! We have a bit of a strange one today, in that Microsoft and Square Enix are bringing 2010's Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light to the library, more than 15 years after its initial release. Due to the age of this Tomb Raider spin-off, the console version of the game is actually an...
Monday29th Sep 2025
News Xbox Adds 'Unified Digital Wallet' To Console, Making It Easier To Track Offers & Redeem Codes
"Offer Wallet is now available on console"
As part of Microsoft's bumper September 2025 update, the team has detailed a new 'unified digital wallet' feature that aims to streamline the way we track offers and redeem Xbox codes. Live now for console users, this 'offer wallet' is directly connected to your Xbox profile, and allows you to "easily find...
News Four New Games Added To Xbox Retro Classics In September 2025
More classics to play on Game Pass!
In today's overview of the Xbox September Update, Microsoft has detailed four new additions to its Retro Classics library, following the seven games that were added in August 2025. Although this a slightly shorter list than what we've become used to since
News First ROG Xbox Ally Unboxing Appears Online Prior To Release
Available to the public next month
Now that pre-orders have been locked in and the full launch details have been shared by Microsoft, we're full-speed ahead towards the ROG Xbox Ally next month - and ahead of the device's October 16th release, an early unboxing of th
