You’re out of school, your job just closed up and you’re looking for a good way to spend your time. If you’ve got a subscription to Xbox Game Pass, then you’ve already got plenty of options right at your fingertips!

Here’s 15 Game Pass Games that you can curl up on the couch to while you’re relaxing for the holidays.

I’ve loved Halo for what feels like a long time. My age means that that love only really began with Halo: Reach, which sprouted into reading the books, watching the shows and movies and playing the games on Legendary just to torture myself.

However, through all of that, since the very start there’s been one game mode that’s always had my heart: Firefight.

Larian Studios knows just how much their fanbase loves to see stats, and they showed off on Twitter/X for everyone to see. Of those stats were things like completed playthroughs, dinosaurs encountered and how many people have been turned into a wheel of cheese, but Larian also revealed the number of people who’ve tried Honour mode and beaten it.

While Larian’s main tweet didn’t dive into the weekend stats, they followed up in the replies with a breakdown of how the weekend went for those brave adventurers who dove right into Patch 5 and wanted to try the new difficulty out for themselves. As it turns out, it has not gone exceptionally well for Baldur’s Gate 3 players, and that’s exactly as intended.

The trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 has finally arrived, showing off some exciting scenic aspects of the game and giving a general release timeframe.

You’ve still got until 2025 to have some fun in GTA 5 and so with that, here’s the top 10 things to do in GTA 5 before the release of GTA 6.

The Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons is an official concert tour that will travel the world to play the music from the game. Not only have the pre-sales been successful, but they’ve needed to add extra dates in order to support the demand, which just goes to show just how important the music in a game can be.

Stardew Valley has had the music nailed down since the moment that it launched, and for me personally, it became a huge reason to keep coming back. It’s soothing, simple, ambient, and fitting for the environment that the game sets out for itself. Not just that, but it fits perfectly with the overall vibe of the game to the point where you don’t have to be actively farming to still evoke those same emotions.

Given that Modern Warfare 3’s zombies mode is always online, players are always bound to meet up with other people during their time in the exclusion zone. While they’ll usually just swing by to revive you if you find yourself downed, sometimes MW3 players might just be feeling a little extra generous.

Reddit user clittlord was playing a match of zombies and found themselves with an extra Speed Cola as a result of their endeavors, and so they figured that someone else in their squad might be better off with it than they were. Once that squad mate found themselves ready to Exfil from the Exclusion Zone, they figured they’d pay back the favor.

Modern Warfare 3 is the next addition to the Call of Duty franchise and its plethora of games, joining the likes of Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone on the Call of Duty HQ. However, while HQ does bring everything together into one place, it makes it more challenging to break into the series than in previous formats.

There are many reasons why the CoD HQ just doesn’t do it for me, the first of which is that nearly every time you open it, there will be an update. I’m not saying I have a problem with updates, but the game loads up fully, then tells you there was an update, only to restart the app and make you load it all up again. It would be much less of a hassle if it could silently update while the game was closed. That way, you could just load directly into the game and get playing.

With the announcement of the first trailer for GTA 6 coming from Sam Houser on the Rockstar Games Twitter account, there are plenty of reasons to be excited for December.

Most of the information that we know about the game comes from leaks, so here’s seven things we want to see in the GTA 6 trailer.

Spider-Man 2 being made exclusively for the PS5 allowed Insomniac to use Sony’s proprietary controller to the fullest extent of it’s capabilities. From sound effects to vibrations to motion controls, here are the top 5 ways that Spider-Man 2 uses the DualSense controller.

Sound Effects

One of the DualSense features that I appreciate the most in Spider-Man 2 is the way in which it uses sounds in your gameplay. These sounds range from being useful to your game to just being an extra little feature that pulls you into the world. For example, when you get phone calls, the speaker on the controller rings to feel like you’re receiving a real notification, or when you’re using a Venom Surge and the controller makes the growls for the suit. It’s even helpful for grabbing the Spider-Bots around the city because the noise plays through your controller and gets louder as you get nearer to them.

Jusant on PC

Imagine a game that artfully tells a story without speaking a word, all while providing a smooth, fun, and fresh gameplay experience. Jusant does just that, telling a creative story filled with ups and downs, and while it isn’t the most refined, it managed to revitalize my love of indie games.

In a year so jam-packed with highly anticipated AAA games, it can be hard to find the time to pick up something less mainstream and give it the light of day. However, to look past Jusant would be a mistake, as it provides a completely different experience than every other game released in 2023. While there’s plenty of competition in the market, Jusant deserves recognition for the execution of the mechanics alone – but that’s far from all it has going for it.

Cooking in Stardew Valley is a great feature in the game, except for the fact that you can’t taste what you make. Luckily, ConcernedApe is releasing a cookbook for the game on May 14, 2024, so here’s 10 recipes that we’d love to see included in the Stardew Valley Cookbook.

Tropical Curry

Tropical Curry is just what it sounds like: a curry with all the spice you’re used to but cut with some sweet, juicy tropical fruits.

Over the years, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has gone from a linear, focused storyline in an open world setting to evolving into role-playing games from the ground up. Although there’s not necessarily anything wrong with an RPG, they tend to stray away from what Assassin’s Creed had started as in more ways than one. Assassin’s Creed Mirage was hyped up to focus on going back to the basics, and it’s become a clear indicator that the RPG genre and Assassin’s Creed do not have to be blended together in order to find success.

That’s not to say that there aren’t aspects of RPG games that are suited very well to the Assassin’s Creed series. The map in Mirage as compared to some of the recent entries like Valhalla or Origins clearly demonstrates a change in the way the game is meant to be played, as well as the general breadth of everything that you’re able to do being more focused and concise. The story’s overall structure is the best example of just how great these games can be, without needing to be set up as RPGs.

With the upcoming release of Spider-Man 2, there are sure to be a lot on excited players’ minds when they see a trailer or read a review. As with all game releases, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to getting ready for the launch, be it your storage being low, techniques being rusty or memory being hazy, so here’s 10 ways to prepare for the release of Spider-Man 2.

1. Catch Up On the First Two Games

This almost feels redundant, but you really should give yourself a nice refresher on Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales prior to the new game’s release. While knowing about the general lore of the characters should definitely help you understand what’s going on, there have been a few things in the games that differ from the way things played out in the comics or movies and might be a surprise if you didn’t play it already.

You know what time it is. The leaves and air are getting nice and crisp, the undead are rising from the ground, and stores already have Christmas decor on the shelves. We all just want to take one month per year to be scared out of our pants, and nothing’s better than immersing yourself in the horror with a good game in October. Here’s our list of 10 of the spookiest, scariest games on Xbox Game Pass that’ll have you hiding behind your couch.

10. The Walking Dead Series

Even though they may not be super terrifying, Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead series is perfect for taking a few hours to experience what life during the zombie apocalypse would be like. They follow the style of the comics more than the TV show, but that style lends itself excellently to the vibe that the games are going for. It’s eerie without being overwhelming, and it’s still grounded enough in reality that you can place yourself into the characters’ shoes and sympathize with their struggles.

After clearing all its hurdles and ducking through all the hoops, Microsoft has finally closed its deal on acquiring Activision Blizzard, opening the door for a swathe of games to be added to Game Pass for subscribers to enjoy for free. While it’s not clear exactly what order they’re gonna make their way to the subscription service, here’s the 10 Activision Blizzard games that we expect are going to come to Game Pass first.

Xbox released a trailer showing plenty of characters old and new to the Xbox family, celebrating the closure of the deal that’s likely to bring many of these characters together on Game Pass. It isn’t certain just which of the games are going to be hitting the service first, but they’ve got quite the selection to choose from.

When you think about racing games on Xbox’s platform, there’s really one name that dominates the landscape, and that’s Forza. However, in 2012 Turn 10 switched up the focus from high-quality racing simulation to something with a bit more freedom in Forza Horizon, and ever since then, both games have been evolving side-by-side. In 2023, the most current entries in each franchise are Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon 5, but which one is the better racing game?

To compare the two games means to compare the main mechanics between them, because at their core they’re both discernible as being Forza. However, where Horizon has open-world exploration, Motorsport has authentic racing and tuning simulations. There’s definitely plenty to love about both games, making them both worth playing for different reasons.

Since Forza stepped on the racing simulation scene in 2005, it’s been able to set itself apart from the rest of the genre with the accuracy of the mechanics and the quality of the graphics — for their respective times. As it goes, for a franchise with eight entries there’s got to be some that are better than others, so here’s our ranking of the Forza Motorsport games from worst to best.

One thing to keep in mind is that these games have come out over many years and multiple generations of consoles. It would be unfair to look at them from the lens of the modern day, so they’ll be ranked according to what they brought to the table at the time of their release. This is definitely a ranking where the gap between first and last is incredibly small.

Forza Motorsport on Xbox Series S

As far as racing simulation goes, Forza has been a name synonymous with the genre since the first Forza Motorsport in 2005. As time has gone on, those titles have transitioned from only the Motorsport titles and into the Horizon as well, but after a 6 year gap between the previous racing sim with Forza Motorsport 7, 2023’s Forza Motorsport had some pretty big tires to fill and did so with finesse.

I’ve fallen off from playing racing titles in recent years, mainly because they can tend to feel repetitive after a while of playing. Forza Horizon is a different story because there’s a lot more freedom in the environment, so those have been the titles that I’ve focused on despite having started out playing the Motorsport games. However, the new Forza Motorsport is an entirely different story. From the moment I finished the first race, I could tell that I was playing something at the cutting edge of what’s possible, and couldn’t take my mind off of it.

By now, everyone knows how much time and effort went into Starfield, and it’s clear just how much of that paid off. It’s unabashedly Bethesda, while expanding its scope far beyond the continents of Tamriel or North America and into the stars. However, like all games, there are always going to be some flaws or downsides, so it’s only fair to point out where Starfield was lacking while discussing what it did right.

What Makes Starfield Out Of This World?

There really is a lot to love about Starfield. The resources put into making the game what it turned out to be are clearly demonstrated in areas like the environments, smooth fast-travel system and world-building, making the game memorable for years to come. If that’s not enough, the soundscape and soundtrack are both breathtaking, instilling the feeling of adventure in even just the menus.

During the Nintendo Direct on September 14, players got to see the reveal trailer for Princess Peach: Showtime! This is the first of the titular princess’ solo outings since 2005 so there’s plenty of hype from fans surrounding the game. Luckily, there seems like there’s going to be plenty of Princess Peach to go with all that hype.

The game looks to be focused around various transformations of Peach that will allow her to perform different actions based on the role that she’s transformed into. While we got a look at a few of them from the trailer like Kung Fu Peach, Patissier Peach and Swordfighter Peach, there’s still plenty of different roles that Peach could transform into that haven’t been shown, and what’s a game release without a bit of speculation? Here’s 10 Peach transformations that would be great to see in Princess Peach: Showtime.