For those who were disappointed in the first batch of Xbox Game Pass games announced early this month, today's announcement of games is sure to boost your spirits. Xbox has unveiled a rather stacked second half of games coming to the service via their blog.
While we've known about many of the games coming at the back half of the month for awhile now, it's still pretty impressive to see them all officially together. It is the beginning of what looks to be a great year all around for the service. And with the Xbox developer direct later this week we could find out even more release dates.
Xbox Game Pass January Wave 2 Games
- Lonely Mountain: Snow Riders (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – Available Today!
- Flock (Console) - January 22
- Gigantic: Rampage Edition (Cloud, Console, and PC) - January 22
- Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (Console) - January 22
- Magical Delicacy (Console) - January 22
- Tchia (Xbox Series X|S) - January 22
- The Case of the Golden Idol (Console) - January 22
- Starbound (Cloud and Console) - January 22
- Eternal Strands (Cloud, Console, and PC) - January 28
- Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) - January 28
- Shady Part of Me (Cloud, Console, and PC) - January 29
- Sniper Elite: Resistance (Cloud, Console, and PC) - January 30
- Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) - January 31
- Far Cry New Dawn (Cloud, Console, and PC) - February 4
As you can see above that's 5 day one releases coming to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass in a span of 10 days. It all starts with Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders today. Snow Riders is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Lonely Mountains: Downhill as it leaves the dirt and bikes behind for the snow and snowboards and skis.
We then have a stretch of 4 games in 4 days to end the month starting with Eternal Strands. The debut game from Yellow Brick Games has the potential to be a standout game. The studio was founded by Dragon Age creator Mike Laidlaw as well as many former Ubisoft developers. Their pedigree has left a lot of gamers eagerly anticipating Eternal Strands.
There's also the surprise edition of Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap. We knew it was coming later this month we just wern't expecting it on Game Pass. Deathtrap is a tower defence/shooter hybrid playable in up to 4 player co-op. Lay traps and defeat waves of Orcs while building up your defences.
2 days later we see the long running Sniper Elite series return with Sniper Elite: Resistance on the 30th. Resistance is more of a spin-off than a true sequel with a new protagonist as Karl Fairburne is taking a much deserved break from the battlefield. Resistance however will play like other Sniper Elite games so if you are a fan you should be happy.
Lastly of the day 1 games we have Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector on the 31st. Starward Vector is a sequel to the critically acclaimed first game that released in 2022 RPG. What makes Citizen Sleeper unique is its dice mechanic that is used throughout, leaving the choices you make up to the fate of your roll.
All in all it's a fantastic way to end the month for the Game Pass service. This lineup should help soften the blow of the 6 games leaving the service on the 31st as well. If you want to make it through any of those games I suggest you do so soon.
Also looking ahead to February is a lot more mystery. February sees the release of the hotly anticipated first party title Avowed. Beyond that we know nothing. Will they make it a slower month to highlight Avowed or are the their secrets up their sleeve? We will find out in a couple weeks.
