Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice It’s a solid third-person action game, but that’s not the main attraction. The player’s character, Senua, a fictional Pict warrior living in the 900s, suffers from a mental disorder. Programmer Ninja Theory Tap into a team of mental health professionals to reflect the reality of the situation. You’ll definitely want to play this game with headphones, as Senua experiences auditory hallucinations (“Furies,” according to her). The sound design there is unmatched. That alone is worth giving this one a spin.
A good match for: Fans of hack-and-slash, psychological horror, and standard action.
Not a good match for: Whoever hopes baseball The permadeath feature is actually a permadeath. People who don’t want puzzles in their action game.
Raw average playtime: 8 o’clock
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Updated 12/20/2022: Hell, boyfriend dungeon, short-sighted, The Story of the Plague: Innocenceand Boy Narita have all left Game Pass, so they’ve also left our list. added is High life, Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga, sleeping citizen, PowerWash Emulator, Signaland Pines beacon.
Updated on April 13, 2022: Nier: Automatic machine and Control are no longer available, so we deleted them. Wild Heart and Destroyboth great and currently available, the obvious way for shredder, Ao Dai, Door of death, Randomly lost, Far: Tide Changeand Norco (first PC-only game included).
Update 1/7/2022: We deleted Celeste, Desperate Person IIIand yakuza 0are all leaving or about to leave Xbox Game Pass as of this update. The outside world and Haven has also been launched. New to the list is Hell, Walker, Unzip, not visible, boyfriend dungeon, Rift Breaker, Bright red Nexusand Octopath touristsplus the return of Outer wilderness.
Updated on 7/15/2021: Kotaku Managers will notice a total overhaul. We’ve decided to retool this list to primarily focus on smaller games that you can skim through but are still worth your time. The longstanding limit of calling out only 12 games is over. We’ve also removed most of the first-party games you might have played if you had an Xbox (Halo: Master Chief Collection, eternal doom, 5 . gear, Ori and the Will of Wisps) and start for Batman: Knight Arkham. Also, Outer wilderness and Crosscode are no longer part of Xbox Game Pass, so they are no longer part of it.
Updated on 10/3/2021: Witch 3: The Wild Hunt and Red Dead Redemption 2 clean up for eternal doom and Celestetwo games will kill you more times than you can count.
Updated September 16, 2020: soul sail to the list, get Shameless Bo Doan 2of location—still a great game, only leaving Game Pass at the end of the month.
Update 6/8/2020: However Life Is Strange 2 sadly no longer on Game Pass, its leaving our list has cleared room for the stellar stuff Crosscode.
Updated on May 14, 2020: we gave Monster Hunter: World and Forza Horizon 4 (both still excellent, both still on Game Pass) warm up to give way Red Dead Redemption 2 and Nier: Automatic machine.
Updated on March 24, 2020: we added yakuza 0 and Ori and the Will of Wisps. They beat Quantum Break and sea of thievesboth are still on Xbox Game Pass (and still great).
