Consider this a PSA.
If you own an XBOX and haven’t yet purchased a subscription to Game Pass, shame on you. You’re letting your friends down. You’re letting your family down. Worst of all, you’re letting yourself down. If you haven’t heard of Game Pass, it’s essentially the Netflix of video games. I hate to use that phrase – it sounds so facile and trite – but it’s true. A subscription to Game Pass allows you to access an extensive catalogue of games from which you can pick and choose the ones you’d like to play.
The catalogue really does have something for everyone. Big on sports? Game Pass boasts NBA2K20 and PES 2019. Got a bent for sci-fi horror? Boot up a copy of Prey or download Alien: Isolation. Or are big guys with guns more your MO? You can crack into a couple rounds of Halo online, play through the campaign of Wolfenstein, or spend an evening turning faces into viscous puddles of blood and gore in Rage 2.
Game Pass has a plethora of blockbuster games. But, even more importantly, its catalogue is packed with dozens of unusual, quirky, and idiosyncratic games. The best part of Game Pass – the real reason I think you should stop buying games, and get a subscription to this service instead – is that it challenges you to change your playing habits.
I’ve played so many great games I would never have played thanks to Game Pass. In particular, I’m thinking of titles like What Remains of Edith Finch, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and Outer Wilds. (Side note: Outer Wilds, a lovely, whimsical game about flying through space and visiting other planets, is similar to, but not the same as, Outer Worlds, a vapid, soulless game about flying through space and visiting other planets. Please stop confusing the two. It’s insulting.)
All of these are brilliant experiences which don’t fit into the mould of conventional games. They have unusual mechanics, atypical stories, and often clock in at five hours or less. They’re not games I would play if I had to pay $20 a pop for them, but – since they’re available on Game Pass for pennies (you can get the first four months of Game Pass for $4, then cancel your subscription with no cost and apply for the same discount again) – I’ve played them all and loved every second of it.
So, if for no other reason than to broaden your videogame horizons, I suggest you pick a subscription to Game Pass. It’s cheap, intuitive to use, and guaranteed to keep you entertained for hours.
