As Jesse Faden, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Control, you explore the confounding, bigger-on-the-inside Oldest House, the paranormal headquarters of the FBC, which is under attack from a malevolent force intent on corrupting reality itself. Part spy thriller, part cubist horror, Control is a game about what happens when architecture turns against you. Controlīefore Alan Wake 2, the Remedy Entertainment renaissance began in 2019 with this astonishingly confident and technically adept action-adventure set in a strange, modernist nightmare. Oli WelshĬocoon is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. But like the very best of them - Fez, for example, or Portal - Cocoon plays games with perception and reality that rewire your brain in pleasantly tortuous ways. Like so many puzzle adventures, it’s essentially a game of locks and keys, plus the occasional ingenious boss fight.

The conceit is that you can step up out of one reality and move it around another on your back, in a gently glowing sphere that also interacts with the world around it, before diving back in - or swapping it for another entirely. It’s a game of pocket universes, one inside another, inhabited by buglike techno-organic life-forms - including the player character, a scurrying little beetle-thing. But it’s more abstract and contemplative, and perhaps even more involving. Image: Geometric Interactive/Annapurna Interactive via PolygonĪ mysteriously beautiful, exquisitely paced puzzle adventure from some of the minds behind Limbo and Inside, Cocoon shares those games’ wordless delivery and stark aesthetic. Ryan GilliamĬhicory: A Colorful Tale is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. And if that creation also brings joy to those around you? Hey, that’s great too. It’s about making something - painting something, in this case - that you are proud of, that makes you happy. 2 slot on Polygon’s 2021 Game of the Year list is the story it tells about the destructive powers of self-doubt - the way it cruelly infects even the greatest artists out there.Ĭhicory is a game that’s not about coloring in the lines or even making something beautiful. The gameplay of Chicory is cute and relatively simple, even as you unlock new powers. Everything is your canvas, and you can color it all to both solve puzzles and customize the setting to your liking. As you travel around the black-and-white open world, you use your new paint powers to bring color back to the environments. Chicory: A Colorful TaleĬhicory: A Colorful Tale tells the story of a small dog who accidentally inherits a magical paintbrush. Mike MahardyĪssassin’s Creed Origins is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It understands that pastoral beauty and tragic storytelling, successfully interwoven, are worth more than any number of distractions its successors can throw at me. But it’s the rare open-world game that trusts my attention span. It’s not completely averse to daily challenges and cosmetic DLC packs. Its map unfurls over deserts, mountains, oases, and sun-swept cities slowly being buried in sand, all while its two central figures (Bayek and Aya) navigate one of video games’ most compelling romances. Whereas the two most recent entries embrace the insecure ethos of “content” that has so defined the last decade of open-world games, Origins is content to leave vast swaths of its world empty and to let things burn slowly, in ways both narrative and explorative. It also displays a confidence that the more recent Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla can only partially match.

It’s a phenomenal concoction of historical tourism, sci-fi storytelling, and open-ended combat. Here are the 25 PC and Xbox Game Pass games that you should be checking out if you subscribe to Microsoft’s flagship service.Īssassin’s Creed Origins has always been good - but it was only in hindsight, three years after its release, that I began to consider it great. With the sheer size and the bounty of choice it offers, Game Pass can be a bit overwhelming to digest. That’s a lot of “free” video gaming to be done! Blockbuster titles are well represented with the likes of Assassin’s Creed, cult favorites like Lies of P have popped up, and Game Pass has continued its strong tradition of curating the best of the indie world with the likes of Cocoon and Jusant. The service has recently been bolstered with the addition of two huge Xbox Game Studios exclusives, Starfield and Forza Motorsport, while Cities: Skylines 2 is a big-deal day one addition for the PC crowd. Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service is set for another great year in 2024, with over 450 games now available for console players and over 400 for PC players.

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