Some really solid choices in this article, Chaos Theory is my favourite of the Splinter Cell games and Crimson Skies was a really cool game that never got a sequel.

@Decimateh

I played Starcraft Remastered through Game Pass Ultimate on my PC, so if you tried to install it on an Xbox that will be your issue. You have to install the Battlenet launcher and link your Xbox account to it, but it's not too hard.

If you have access to any PC or laptop it's worth trying to see how the game runs, since the system requirements are pretty low.

Microsoft needs to stop making cuts to their developers every year after buying up profitable studios. They make so much money they can afford to lose some on the gaming division for a few years while trying to make up ground in market share.

Show me you're invested in growing your gaming market share if you're asking me to reinvest in your hardware environment.

I'm an accountant and I can tell you there's no reason they needed to make the cuts they have. The cash position at that company is crazy, they have a near monopoly in enterprise software solutions.

I often wait until a game has been out a few months to play it anyway, I usually play on PC so waiting a few months usually results in having fewer bugs.

I would rather see them drop the Fortnite crap, but waiting 3 to 6 months for new releases would be fine for me.

I never pay for early access to a game, but I will definitely be excited to play it on Game Pass.

Early access pay days are basically a modern "marshmallow test" for adults. If you can hold off eating the marshmallow then you're much more likely to be successful elsewhere in life.

My wife's workplace gives 25% off any 3 items in the store as a Christmas bonus and they sell consoles so I was able to get a brand new XSX for way below retail price.

A pretty high percentage of Call of Duty multi-player gamers only play COD and nothing else, so it wasn't really a good fit for Game Pass.

It's also the first party Xbox game I'm least interested in, so taking it out of day 1 and lowering the price is a big win for me.

Next step: remove the Fortnite cosmetic subscription and drop the price of Game Pass another buck per month.

I play this one in short stints so I'm only level 42 with 36 cars.

I played Astroneer with two friends and we loved it. That game ended up being way bigger than we initially thought it would be and the scale really set the stage for some epic engineering projects.

I don't get any value from a game being exclusive personally, other people having access to a game does not make it less valuable to me. It ultimately means fewer MS studio games will be made because the revenue prospects are worse.

I bought an XSX console because I was a PC game pass subscriber first and found it to be such good value that I got a console and upgraded to Game Pass Ultimate to be able to use features like quick resume and make it easier for my kids to play. Maybe that makes me less invested in the console wars mentality of the other people surveyed.

Borderlands 3 left on August 31, likely because Borderlands 4 launched in September.

I really enjoyed Sifu, if you know your Kung Fu movies there's a lot of references to pick up on in it.

Thanks for this article!

The tip at the end about pressing A for the game hub and X to just launch the game is really helpful because I haven't fully decided if I like game hubs yet. It's got some useful info but I don't need it every time I launch a game.

@GamingFan4Lyf
It could be that memory limitations on the S prevented them from hitting 60 fps anyway, so there wasn't a point in lowering the resolution since it wasn't the bottleneck.

You sometimes see that with CPU bound titles as well, they won't have a 60 fps mode because the towns and cities are so CPU intensive that you'll get fps drops no matter the resolution.

@Savage_Joe

You're right, that's how they got me as a customer! I started out as a PC game pass subscriber to play a few games I was interested in and just kept finding more stuff I wanted to play.

Ended up getting an XSX to make playing in the living room easier and upgrading to Ultimate. I play through 50+ game pass games per year so definitely been worth it.

The PC to console customer acquisition pipeline is a smart angle.

Xbox Game Pass games already come to PC the same day as on console, so if it's a game where the visuals really matter I play on PC.

Master chief collection
Civ 6 + expansions
Rocket League,

This goes against my nature though, since I have game pass so I can try a new short game every week. I love finding a new game that really clicks for me that I never would have bought if I couldn't try it for free first.

This feature is the main reason I would choose to play something on Xbox vs PC.

I've seen a few comments being concerned that this feature would take resources away from what they're currently playing, but it doesn't. It basically copies the RAM to the SSD. When you use quick resume it loads back the data the other way.

There's no overhead cost on the CPU/GPU/RAM while the game state is stored to the SSD, so there's no performance impact when playing other games.

@BRT15

I played Jusant which is an Unreal Engine 5 game and I think the most noticeable difference is the lighting in otherwise dark spaces looked really good. (Even without ray tracing.)

It was a game from a smaller development team though and used less complex textures so it won't be directly comparable to Hellblade 2.

Citizen Sleeper is basically just a visual novel but I found the hard sci-fi story really engaging. I'm not usually a visual novel kind of player but I recommend that one if you like tough choices and enjoy reading.

I also really enjoyed Sniper Elite 5 playing it as a stealth game.

@CaptnDave

I really liked that game and the setting too, it could really use a sequel.

I thought Chorus was a pretty good arcade style flight combat game if you're looking for something similar that's more modern. It's got a space/sci fi setting rather than prop planes but it's a similar mix of capital ship and fighter combat.

I believe the term "boomer shooter" comes from the fact that many of the guns in these games tend to be explosive. (Rockets, grenade launchers, etc.)

Looking forward to trying this out on Game Pass!

Civilizations 6 actually left back in September, it was one of the rare 6 month stays on Game pass.

Always appreciate this list! It's nice to get an early jump on potential departures.