Summary
- Three new games are coming to Xbox Game Pass Core on August 21.
- Subscribers to the service's lower tier will gain access to Cities: Skylines, SnowRunner, and Control: Ultimate Edition.
- Core subscribers can likely anticipate more game drops around the holidays.
Xbox has revealed another batch of games set to become available on the Core tier of Xbox Game Pass. The conversion from Xbox Live Gold to Xbox Game Pass Core took place last year, giving Xbox Live users who weren't previously subscribed to Game Pass a small library of over 20 games to download at no additional cost. Every few months since, Xbox has added a handful of titles to the Core library, which has been home to major titles like Doom Eternal, Fallout 4, Dishonored 2, and more.
2024 has been a solid year for Xbox Game Pass, with games like the Resident Evil 2 remake, Persona 3 Reload, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor joining the library earlier in the year and Mafia: Definitive Edition making the most recent splash last week. Xbox's very own cinematic adventure, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, also landed on the service back in May. There are still many big games set to come to Game Pass this Fall, most notably Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Despite all this, Xbox Game Pass Core subscribers haven't had as good a year, as new games are slower to come to this lower tier.
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Game Pass is upping the ante with the latest batch of games coming to its Core tier. A new Xbox Wire post details everything new set to come to Game Pass by the end of the month, with Xbox revealing three new titles joining the Core tier on August 21. These include Cities: Skylines, the off-road trucking simulator SnowRunner, and Remedy Entertainment's hit 2019 action game Control: Ultimate Edition. Thankfully, no games were announced to be leaving the Game Pass Core library this month.
New Games Coming To Xbox Game Pass Core On August 21
- Control: Ultimate Edition
- SnowRunner
- Cities: Skylines
Control is a very big win for Game Pass Core subscribers. The action-adventure title was critically acclaimed upon its release and went on to become nominated for Game of the Year at the 2019 Game Awards, ultimately losing out to FromSoftware's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Control has remained relevant in the gaming zeitgeist by way of its narrative ties to Remedy's Alan Wake series, with the sequel released to high praise just last year. Gamers who've yet to explore the Federal Bureau of Control will now be able to catch up, as Remedy is currently confirmed to be working on Control's highly anticipated sequel. Whether the game's addition points to either of the Alan Wake games popping up in the Core library sometime in the future is yet to be seen.
It's rare to see a larger, more popular game like Control being added to Xbox Game Pass Core, as the past few drops have been smaller indie titles. Game Pass Core subscribers can likely look forward to the next batch of games added sometime around the holidays, as it's typically been three or four months between new Core drops.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the highest tier of Microsoft's flagship game subscription service that offers over 100 game titles that you can play with a single purchase, making it one of the most outstanding value propositions of the Xbox ecosystem to date.
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