If you're like me, you may at one point have wondered just how much money a PC player with a subscription to PC Game Pass actually saves. It turns out it's quite the substantial figure, with the total dollar worth of games added to the service in 2024 coming to just under $5,000.
]]>Microsoft has announced the first wave of January Game Pass line-up, kicking off the new year with a selection of new titles for subscribers to check out. Though, if you're a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber playing on Xbox, you're only getting one new game.
]]>Microsoft is kicking off the new year with some news on a big Game Pass Ultimate feature that may have been overshadowed in recent years. Game Pass Quests offers a fairly straightforward way of earning points for checking out Game Pass titles.
]]>It looks like one of next year’s Game Pass updates will be bringing us some classic bangers, particularly those of us who grew up playing shooters on the Xbox 360/PS3 generation. The latest leak is yet another thing that points to Microsoft’s continued interest in expanding the service’s line-up with classic, back-catalogue titles from the many studios it owns.
]]>It’s still early days for Black Ops 6, but a few of the top weapons and attachments are already turning into the best loadouts to dominate Multiplayer. But while the meta hasn’t fully settled at this stage, you'll definitely come across a few recurring builds the longer you spend playing multiplayer.
]]>Predicting that a Call of Duty launch is going to become one the year’s biggest is about as easy as it gets, but that’s not always the case on PC. For years, Call of Duty’s presence on PC didn’t really factor into its popularity, but things have changed with the release of the Modern Warfare 2019 reboot.
]]>It’s almost time to get our hands on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the highly-anticipated return of developer Treyarch, with everything that entails. Treyarch is known for its distinct take on Call of Duty campaigns and characters, as well as its unmatched mastery of round-based Zombies.
]]>According to a new report, Microsoft is planning to introduce the ability to cloud stream any Xbox game you own starting from next month.
]]>You. You there! Be afraid. Be very AFRAID.
]]>You’d be forgiven for entirely forgetting Payday 3 even came out, but it was, in fact, released last year. The game is coming up on its one year anniversary on September 21, and a lot has changed since that disastrous launch.
]]>Amazon's Fallout TV show has rightly earned about nine million plaudits since it came out, and the latest comes from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. During a call outlining the company's latest batch of financial numbers, we've learned the extent to which the show boosted the player counts of Fallout titles on Game Pass.
]]>If you’re a fan of sandbox mining and crafting games, you’ve likely heard of Core Keeper. You may have even played it since it entered Steam Early Access over two years ago. Either way, the popular cozy spelunking adventure is about to reach a major milestone.
]]>The Federal Trade Commission recently expressed that it has some issues with the recent Xbox Game Pass price hike, but Microsoft unsurprisingly disagrees.
]]>You remember those recent changes Microsoft made to Xbox Game Pass, both in terms of tiers on offer and pricing? Well, the FTC definitely isn't confused about how to feel about them. In fact, it's now claimed that they represent "exactly the sort of consumer harm" it was trying to prevent coming to pass last year.
]]>We’re officially closer than ever to the release of Black Ops 6. And, as is custom, Activision has revealed new details about the upcoming beta, due to kick off late in August. The Black Ops 6 beta was announced alongside the game in June, but today, we get solid dates and some new information.
]]>Xbox Game Pass is getting a price hike across all tiers and platforms, and day-one AAA releases are also getting more expensive. In addition, Xbox Game Pass will be temporarily unavailable on console soon, returning later in September with the new Xbox Game Pass "Standard". Pre-existing subscribers will not be affected.
]]>First of all, Still Wakes the Deep is an incredible artistic achievement. It may be The Chinese Room’s best ever game, blending the tense creeping horror of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs with the evocative, beautifully researched world-building of Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.
]]>Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn showed up briefly during the Xbox Showcase to deliver a killer new trailer, and the news fans of A44 have been anticipating for years: a final, actual, honest-to-god release date.
]]>It wouldn’t be a Warhammer Skulls showcase without some news from Fatshark, the developer behind the beloved Darktide and Vermintide games. Today, the studio delivered a few reveals for both Warhammer 40,000: Darktide and Vermintide 2.
]]>Microsoft has announced the final batch of titles coming to Game Pass in May, and there are quite a few to unpack, so let’s get started.
]]>2024 will forever be known as the year of record games industry layoffs and studio closures, but I’d argue it will be just as remembered as the year Xbox lost the plot. Every other month, Microsoft’s gaming division has what ranges from avoidable PR scandal to full-on doom-and-gloom meltdown.
]]>Xbox Game Pass has always, in my mind, been a wonderfully enticing offering. Pay a relatively small fee each month/year in exchange for an ever-revolving door of games to play. These games would span the genres, the scale, and budgets that the industry offers, giving a curated taste that would satisfy the majority of people looking to play as a hobby without the need to be so 'online' they know the shoe size of every developer working today. But there's always been a problem: Xbox doesn't have the big games, and its biggest rarely make die-hard fans of other platforms jealous.
]]>Subscribe to Game Pass todayAccess hundreds of great games for Xbox and PC when you become a Game Pass member. Benefits include playing new games on day one, enjoying new game additions each month, plus you can get exclusive member discounts and other free perks. Choose from Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, or a Game Pass Ultimate subscription so that you can play all your favourite games on your console, gaming PC or on your phone, tablet or TV using cloud. Prices start from just £7.99 per month from Microsoft, or you can support our site when you buy Game Pass subscriptions from our eShop. |
Microsoft has announced upcoming titles coming to
Subscribe to Game Pass todayAccess hundreds of great games for Xbox and PC when you become a Game Pass member. Benefits include playing new games on day one, enjoying new game additions each month, plus you can get exclusive member discounts and other free perks. Choose from Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, or a Game Pass Ultimate subscription so that you can play all your favourite games on your console, gaming PC or on your phone, tablet or TV using cloud. Prices start from just £7.99 per month from Microsoft, or you can support our site when you buy Game Pass subscriptions from our eShop. |
The highly-anticipated medieval strategy builder Manor Lords is now available through Early Access.
]]>Check out the video above for an in-depth appraisal of this very unique adventure, in which we ask the question: is it still possible for games to surprise us?
]]>Why is everyone so interested in Manor Lords? The game, an ambitious city builder/RTS hybrid, attempts to simulate how medieval towns were constructed by embracing organic layouts and doing away with the grid systems common in the genre. And, today, it hit 3 million wishlists on Steam – that's no mean feat. It's currently above even Hades 2. That's impressive.
]]>In recent weeks, it has become somewhat customary to dunk on Diablo 4 for one reason or another. Most of it has been entirely justified, and we’ve certainly partaken in some of that dunking ourselves.
]]>As promised, this week marks the launch of Diablo 4 on Game Pass. The premier action RPG will soon be available to Game Pass members on Xbox, as well as PC. This has been a longtime coming, and Diablo 4 is only the first of many Activision Blizzard games that will soon be part of the service’s line-up following the completion of Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
]]>Microsoft has announced the next batch of Game Pass titles that will round out the month of March and take us into April.
]]>Today, during the Xbox Partner Preview, Capcom presented new gameplay footage of the Japanese-inspired world of Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.
]]>11 bit studios has announced a release date for Frostpunk 2, its sequel to the original society survival game.
]]>As part of today’s Xbox Partner Preview livestream, 11 bit Studios delivered an exciting new look at its next project, the long-in-development The Alters. The sci-fi survival game has been showing up here and there, but the studio has returned today to deliver meaningful new details.
]]>Microsoft will host its next Xbox Partner Preview today, promising a mix of new and upcoming games from publishers like Capcom, Nexon, EA, and more.
]]>March is coming in like a lion, and so are the latest offerings for Game Pass, giving you seven titles to soften the trudge into spring.
]]>This week The Shiitake Show asks: what's the point of Xbox? That's not us being sarcastic or snide. It's a question that everyone in the industry, not least Microsoft themselves, needs to find an answer to. A conflicted, convoluted vision for the platform has left it struggling for an identity at the dawn of a future it is trying to forge for us all, one where the console itself no longer matters. And yet, Xbox still needs us to buy Xboxes. It's a tricky position to be in, compounded by the perception that Xbox doesn't have any compelling exclusives. Watch below.
]]>Two months into 2024, and we finally have a fresh look at A44’s long-awaited Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, the Soulslike, God of War-inspired action RPG. Flintlock, of course, is the studio’s followup to one of our favourite Soulslikes, Ashen - but it’s quite a different beast.
]]>Would you look at that, Dead Island 2 looks to have quietly rocked up on Xbox Game pass without an official announcement as of writing.
]]>Diablo 4 is heading to Game Pass for PC and Xbox on March 28.
]]>A new batch of games is coming to Game Pass this month, and it’s filled with a rather diverse lineup of genres such as survival, puzzling, sports, fantasy, and channeling your inner motorman.
]]>Xbox doesn’t have the legacy of Nintendo or PlayStation. Despite Microsoft’s video game platform turning 23 this year, there’s no denying that for most people the Xbox’s legacy is little more than Halo. That’s clearly not true, but Xbox plays third fiddle to almost everyone who doesn't like to shout a lot on social media and @PhilSpencer like they are old school buddies.
]]>Apple has updated its policy when it comes to hosting apps that offer things like cloud game streaming, meaning playing Xbox Game Pass on your iPhone might get easier.
]]>There’s been a lot of chatter recently with regards to subscription services and their potential to eventually become the dominant force model-wise in the games industry. However, it looks like the current data on offer doesn’t indicate that a dystopian future like that coming to fruition is anything like a foregone conclusion.
]]>The Xbox Developer Direct showcase takes place today, and you can keep up with all of the announcements and gameplay presentations right here.
]]>Xbox has taken the cover off the next batch of titles coming to Game Pass as January draws to a close and we kick on into February (don’t worry the speed at which time moves scares me too).
]]>It’s been widely reported that Xbox added approximately $5k worth of games to Game Pass in 2023. That’s a great number. Amazing value, you could say, given at its most expensive a year of Game Pass Ultimate would set you back just over $200.
]]>Microsoft has announced the first batch of Game Pass titles for 2024, and it’s a pretty decent line-up to kick off the new year.
]]>Hello there. Goat Simulator 3 arrives on Xbox Game Pass today.
]]>Turns out that to regularly add third party games to a service like Xbox Game Pass means you have to spend an unthinkable amount of money.
]]>Despite some earlier comments, Xbox Head Phil Spencer has cleared the air on whether we might see Game Pass on PlayStation or Nintendo consoles.
]]>2023 has been Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's strongest year, and the game will end it on a high note with yet more content. Darktide, of course, finally came out on Xbox in 2023, and launched its biggest update ever.
]]>It seems Microsoft listened to our suggestion to add something big to Game Pass for the holidays, except it may have done it a tiny bit early. Xbox Game Pass was just updated with two surprise additions, available right now for all members.
]]>I’ve talked previously about how amazing it would have been as a child to have Xbox Game Pass – like you’ve won the video game lottery. I think the service is great and is both a great value offering and a brilliant way to simplify the video game landscape. So, when I say that I think Xbox Game Pass needs a little shot in the arm this holiday season, it comes from a place of love.
]]>The final batch of Game Pass titles for November have been announced, including some you already knew were coming to the service.
]]>A patch is coming to Lies of P along with DLC, and a sequel is also planned.
]]>November is looking to be a good month for Xbox Game Pass subscribers, as the previously PlayStation and PC exclusive Rollerdrome arrives at the end of the month.
]]>Video game climbing is a deceptive affair. Rarely is it the centrepiece gameplay mechanic: often it’s barely more than a one-button means for Nathan Drake to get to the next shooty bit. A traversal mode for getting across Florence or Damascus in a hurry, akin to a car in the sense that you just press the button to turn it on and point it when you want to go. The System takes care of the rest. Yes, I’m being reductive, and dismissive of the fact that Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and any other Climby Games you’d want to mention usually have a few tricky puzzles where being good at prodding The System is crucial, but games rarely get your palms sweaty searching for the next handhold.
]]>Payday 3 is firmly in its rough patch era. The game's popularity has dwindled to a worrying degree, at least from what we can see on Steam. The heist simulator only came out on September 21, so it's been a little over a month since launch.
]]>Battlefield 2042 actually pulled it off, and made the comeback most said was impossible. It all started last weekend, when the game kicked off another free weekend across all platforms, alongside a hefty sale.
]]>The games industry's habit of launching broken games and apologising on the day of release with a list of known issues and promises to continue working to make things better may have felt like the worst it's going to get, but the industry never stops innovating.
]]>Captain Kirk is climbing the mountain. Why is he climbing the mountain? Because it’s there. Kirk doesn’t need a good reason to climb the mountain: being a man triumphing over nature is its own reward. You don’t need a good reason to watch Star Trek V: The Final Frontier either, because there aren’t any, although a stiff drink is usually recommended.
]]>Microsoft has announced another wave of games coming to Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass in October 2023, and the list includes some highly anticipated titles.
]]>Over the weekend, right when Call of Duty was having a big moment with the Modern Warfare 3 beta, EA and DICE had some bit of counter-programming planned, which no one could’ve predicted would end up actually helping Battlefield.
]]>Here's a quick bit of news for you: Microsoft has announced an Xbox Series S Start Bundle and it comes with three months of Game Pass Ultimate.
]]>It seems like Warhammer 40,000: Darktide never truly got its moment in the sun. Its late 2022 release was highly-anticipated, but circumstances leading up to the launch, the subsequent (and seemingly indefinite) delay of the Xbox version sort of made it start on the back foot.
]]>It looks like Payday 3 is finally starting to turn a corner. After weeks of server instability that even had developer Starbreeze consider implementing an offline mode for solo players, things have finally started to stabilise.
]]>Like Falkor, I'm seemingly part of a neverending story. I've been here, writing these near exact words, time and time again. But I'll keep writing them.
]]>I was looking forward to the release of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide from the moment it was announced. I’ve played over a hundred hours of Vermintide, and Vermintide 2, so I knew I could count on developer Fatshark to deliver a compelling action game.
]]>Microsoft has announced some of the games coming to Game Pass in October.
]]>It is no secret at this point that Payday 3 has had one of the most turbulent launches for a live game in recent memory. The game suffered from constant connectivity issues, matchmaking problems, and various other stability issues that rendered it unplayable for most players over the weekend.
]]>One of the many underwhelming things about Starfield is that its version of space travel boils down watching cutscenes to transition to space/surface or to travel between planets. It's basically a collection of loading screens that never stop reminding you that you're loading between different levels, and not actually travelling in space.
]]>While we wait for the big Starfield update, currently in the works, Bethesda released a smaller patch across all platforms. This one addresses a couple of serious bugs that (at their worst) could block quest progress.
]]>Payday 3 officially launched last Thursday, September 21, following an early access period for owners of the Silver and Gold editions of the game. While server stability during the early access launch was rocky, things took a turn for the worse when the floodgates opened on the full launch day.
]]>With the latest update to Game Pass live, it means that older releases must make way for the new ones, and seven games are leaving the service soon.
]]>At Tokyo Game Show 2023, Microsoft announced a slate of games coming to Game Pass soon.
]]>Yesterday was not a great day for Microsoft’s Xbox division. Due to some goof up by entities unknown, documents submitted for the purposes of discovery in the Federal Trade Commission's case against Microsoft purchasing Activision Blizzard (a case they actually dropped earlier this year) ended up splashed all over the internet, as reported by many gaming focused Twitter accounts and media outlets (including ourselves, naturally).
]]>We're coming towards the end of September, so Xbox has revealed the next batch of games that will be coming to Game Pass throughout the rest of the month.
]]>If you've been unfortunate enough to witness the often exhausting and embarrassing discourse around video games, you'll no doubt be familiar with a recent one involving Starfield. It has nothing to do with the game's artistic, narrative, or even technical merits.
]]>Starfield is hitting the spot for a lot of players when it comes to that need for something sci-fi, but it isn't the only game within the genre that joined Game Pass this month that's worth your time. While it first launched on PlayStation back in 2021, Heart Machine's most recent title Solar Ash finally arrived on Xbox and PC last week. Despite how our own Tom Orry felt in his review, I found the game to be quite captivating, from the Jet-Set-Radio-like movement to the Shadow-of-the-Colossus-style boss battles. There was one thing in particular that drew me in most of all though: the vibes.
]]>Whether it was the similarities to Bloodborne, the link to the story of Pinocchio, or the fact it’s on Game Pass is what brought you to Lies of P - this is a game that’s not always the most welcoming to new players.
]]>Lies of P is a Souls-like that occasionally offers its own take on ideas and mechanics you’d expect to see in those games. While you may find a lot of familiar mechanics here, be prepared to see a different interpretation of one thing or another the more you play.
]]>The minute you mention that a game is a Souls-like, everyone automatically assumes a certain subset of mechanics are going to be present. But one mechanic in particular seems to have somehow avoided evolution alongside many of the others that did: dropping your Souls (in Lies of P's case, Ergo) upon death.
]]>Lies of P is a game of two halves, both of which are underwhelming. The story is a retelling of the Adventures of Pinocchio, set in a world that owes some of its looks to Bloodborne’s Yharnam, and Steelrising’s 18th Century Paris. Outside of being aware of the idea that its nose grows every time P tells a lie, I’m not familiar with the story of Pinocchio, so I didn’t have any expectations about the narrative one way or another.
]]>No Man's Sky has been one of the best examples of a video redemption story, and developer Hello Games never stopped expanding the game with new content, and more features. Just recently, the procedural space adventure celebrated its seventh anniversary with the Echoes update, and it doesn't look like there's an end in sight to this support.
]]>Forza Motorsport developer, Turn 10, released nearly 18 minutes of new footage from its upcoming series reboot. Made up entirely of gameplay, the new video captures the first few minutes of the game.
]]>Starfield modders never really had to wait for Bethesda's blessing to mod the game. There are already hundreds of Starfield mods tweaking everything. From inventory UI updates, to adding missing basic features and even some... horny additions that aren't very gameplay relative.
]]>Xbox has announced it's hosting a Digital Broadcast during the Tokyo Game Show later this month, promising to reveal more titles that are coming to Game Pass.
]]>With the September update to Game Pass live, older releases must make way for new ones, and nine games are leaving the service this month.
]]>Microsoft has announced the next batch of titles coming to Game Pass in September, and the list contains more than just Starfield.
]]>Starfield is yet another major release, sponsored by AMD, which does not support Nvidia's DLSS upscaling tech. Starfield is a Bethesda game, however, so whatever the developer didn't put into the game, modders always come to the rescue.
]]>Starfield officially arrives on September 6, which is also when it unlocks for Xbox Game Pass, and PC Game Pass members. Thousands (millions?) of players didn't want to wait until then, so they opted for the $100 Premium Edition, which unlocked on September 1 - up to five days early.
]]>PC and peripheral manufacturer Lenovo has officially announced the Legion Go, a Steam Deck-like handheld device that has a few interesting things going for it - besides its specs. The Legion Go, much like the Asus ROG Ally, runs Windows 11.
]]>It's early days for Starfield, which makes it the perfect time for the smaller, more utilitarian mods to start appearing. This initial phase is, so far, responsible for giving us an FOV slider.
]]>Have you heard about Sea of Stars? The gorgeous little indie game – a knowing throwback of an RPG, peppered with all the modern quality of life updates you'd expect from a 2023 release – has been slowly broiling over in certain parts of the internet for a while.
]]>Warhammer 40,000: Darktide was supposed to be released on PC, and Xbox Series X/S consoles simultaneously. Then, the Xbox version was pushed back. In January, developer Fatshark revealed in an open letter that the Xbox version has been delayed indefinitely, as the studio was in the midst of dealing with a long list of issues, and negative player sentiment around the PC release.
]]>Modding a Bethesda game is practically considered part of the experience. If not to make quality of life tweaks or fix annoying issues, mods add entirely new areas, implement interesting new mechanics, and sometimes branch out to become standalone games in their own right. Starfield may promise to be Bethesda's least-buggy game, but that only means more serious mods can start appearing early.
]]>Microsoft is adding five more games to Game Pass this month, and the additions kick off today with Everspace 2.
]]>The latest batch of games coming to Game Pass in August have been announced.
]]>Did you know that, in literature, strawberries are often interpreted as a symbol of humility, of modesty, of shyness? The theory is that because the hybrid fruit species is grown under the shade of its own leaves, the sweet red foodstuff has a shrinking view of its own importance – or, rather, it knows exactly its place in the world and craves nothing bigger.
]]>There are just too many video games on Xbox Game Pass, so it's a good thing the newest Ultimate perk will let you take a break with some anime.
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