When Game Pass first came out, you might have rightly guessed that the whole thing is just a great big frontend designed to suck people into Xbox’s first-party wormholes like Halo, Sea of Thieves and Gears of War. But maybe that’s a bit of an odd and old-fashioned way of looking at things, because if there’s one thing Xbox has shown in recent years, it’s that it’s no longer defined by its traditional cluster of first-party IPs. .
Game Pass is a pretty solid representation of Xbox’s new platform fluidity and diversity. The library is large, sure, but it also feels carefully curated to cater to a wide range of gaming audiences. Never was that more evident than this year, when Game Pass hosted some of the best indie games in recent memory; the kind of clever, high-pitched games that make the oft-used description of Game Pass as the ‘Netflix of Gaming’ sound a bit crude. Here are some of this year’s games that show that Game Pass is much more than just trying to get you to buy Battle Passes in Halo or cats in Sea of Thieves.
Norco (PC only)
The rich form of Game Pass began earlier in the year with Norco, the wonderfully weird Louisiana point-and-click adventure from debuting developer Geography of Robots. Set against the backdrop of the poor, over-industrialized titular city of the near future, Norco oscillates between fantastic visuals and rugged realism, all held together with incredible (and often despicable and hilarious) lyrics and stunning pixel art. Seriously, exhaust all the dialogue you can in this game to get carried away by some bizarre stories – especially the guy in the French Quarter… with the old hot dogs… and the limousine.
Norco’s atmosphere is as thick as the sky deep in Louisiana – the gloomy melodies, strange characters and dim environments really evoke a city, like so many in America, left behind by ‘progress’. Having been on a kind of point-and-click odyssey for the past few years, I can say that Norco addresses long-standing issues with the genre when it comes to ambiguity and pace of puzzles. By using mini-games to break up the game, it goes to show that sometimes you have to renounce genre conventions to advance the genre itself.
Immortality
Do you remember FMV games in the 90s? What was once considered “the future of gaming” instead became this weird anomaly genre that we would look back on and laugh about. But for a few years now, Sam Barlow has been on a mission to reinvigorate the idea of merging live-action movies and gaming, and Immortality is his most ambitious venture to date.
In the game, you have to find out what happened to an actress, Marissa Marcel, who is said to star in three films made between the late 60s and late 90s. By sifting through footage from the making of these movies, you can eventually put the story together (it’s a For real weird). The performances, writing and all round authenticity from these movies to their respective periods make this a cinephile’s dream even if it can get quite nightmarish.
You can also play Barlow’s other two FMV games, Her Story and Telling Lies, on Game Pass.
burger sleeper
Not every RPG needs to be tied to a grand story of saving (or, in some cases, subjugating) the world. Sometimes all you need is a calm, bleak story where you are portrayed as an escaped AI humanoid trying to survive on a rickety space station controlled by various factions trying to escape the clutches of interstellar capitalism.
You have tremendous RPG freedom in how you approach the strange inhabitants of the space station – many with conflicting agendas that you need to navigate. You can be a Machinist capable of digging into the cogs of the station to extend your waning life, spend your precious cryptocurrency feeding a cat, or stomp around like a no-nonsense Extractor who prefers things resolved by force.
A bit like Disco Elysium, this game sticks to classic RPG conventions like RNG and dice, meaning not everything goes according to plan. If you can get around that and the fact that you’re not actually controlling an avatar in the world and actually playing through a detailed map of the station, you’re in for one of the most silently brilliant RPGs of the year.
When dusk falls
I’ve already said my bit about As Dusk Falls’ weird static art style and how it takes a little getting used to, but go beyond that and this is one of the best choice-driven interactive movie-style games of the last few years. When a trio of brothers on the run from the police and a family traveling across the country all find themselves in a roadside motel in Arizona, their lives become intertwined, and your choices will determine who lives, who dies, and who. contacts those, among other life-changing decisions.
The fast-paced events and dialogue in As Dusk Falls have been simplified to work on touchscreens (up to seven people can play, with decisions being made by committee), and the real charm is in seeing the myriad of ways the story can branch out. The flawed, distressed and downright broken characters sometimes feel almost at really for some of the action packed set pieces the game takes you through.
You may need to clear your palette of all the mid-high-brow offerings listed above (although I’m sure metal fans are tearing my ears over the genre’s eminent ties to classical music). If so, you may need to descend into the heavy metal-based hell of this rhythm-based first-person shooter. Using Doom’s interrupted, fluid combat and turning it into a literal rhythm game, Metal: Hellsinger will have you tearing through hell to the deep demonic twangs of bass guitars and custom metal songs sung by some familiar faces (or rather voices) from the scene.
Even if you’re not a fan of the acquired taste that is heavy metal (like yours), the music is so well woven into the game’s combat and tone that you almost forget what you’re listening to as you merge with the game, Shooting ultra-violently and blasting your way through an army of the best from hell on your way to retrieving the main character’s voice.
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