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Like the dusty video rental stores of yesteryear, Xbox Game Pass lets you try out a bunch of different games in one place. If you’re anything like me, you may be keen to figure out if there’s anything worth playing on Xbox Game Pass before you lay down cash for a subscription. Or maybe you already have the service, and you’re just wondering what some of the best picks are for your next playthrough. Either way, you’re in the right place.
Decision paralysis creeps in when you have a whole buffet of games that you don’t know that well to choose from. The sheer breadth of the Xbox Game Pass library can be overwhelming to newcomers and gaming veterans alike. If you’re feeling indecisive about your next game, rest easy, we’ve done the legwork for you and narrowed down some of the best games on Xbox Game Pass.
- Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service that grants unrestricted access to a library of hundreds of games.
- A subscription will cost you anywhere from $9.99 to £29.99 (£6.99–£22.99), depending on the tier you choose.
- The best Xbox Game Pass games include AAA heavy-hitters like GTA 5, AA gems like Clair Obscur Expedition 33, and indie puzzlers like Blue Prince.
Clair Obscur Expedition 33
While nobody expected Clair Obscu: Expedition 33 to shoot straight to the moon in terms of sales and popularity, it’s certainly earned all that attention. A turn-based RPG with a beautiful style and a setting inspired by the Belle Époque era of French history, Clair Obscur has everything you could want from a great RPG.
Its story revolves around the members of the Expedition, a group of explorers with only a year to live, who set out to stop the mysterious Paintress from wiping another generation of humanity from existence. Combining turn-based combat with real-time parries, dodges, and counters is a brilliant touch that gives you time to make decisions, but keeps you engaged with real-time action. The story is weighty, meaningful stuff that leaves on heck of an impression. Bring tissues.
Balatro
Straddling the divide between a simple card game and that distant memory of your brother shuffling Uno and tarot cards into the poker deck, Balatro is a genius mash-up of ideas. The idea is simple: build the best poker hand while using joker cards and a variety of other methods to rack up your score.
Each round you play, you’ll have to reach exponentially higher scores with a limited number of hands and redraws to continue. Along the way, you can remove or modify cards in your deck, increase your score from particular types of hands, and just plain cheat in a variety of creative ways. Annarchic and compelling, Balatro will have you coming back for more.
Call of Duty Black Ops 6
The latest in the venerable shooter series brings all the multiplayer mayhem you’ve come to expect, but the single-player campaign is the real star when it comes to Call of Duty Black Ops 6. It’s a big departure from previous Black Ops entries and makes Black Ops 6 one of the best games on Xbox Game Pass. If you’re looking for tense, responsive gunplay but would rather do so away from other human beings, then Black Ops 6’s meaty campaign mode will oblige.
Stepping back to the end of the Cold War in the early 90s, the usual military slog has been swapped out for a tale spun around rogue CIA operatives, spies, and a spooky organization called Pantheon. Call of Duty Black Ops 6 returns to its darker, more clandestine roots.
Blue Prince
While the phrase ‘first-person roguelike puzzler’ is a new one, Blue Prince parades its perfectly amalgamated genres with pride. Having inherited the mysterious Mount Holly manor, your goal is to search its ever-shifting rooms to find room 46, mentioned in the will that granted you the place.
Every day you set out into the house, you’ll choose which rooms to search. You’ll then have to connect them and confront the puzzles contained in each room. But the game only really starts in earnest once you’ve reached room 46. The entire process is strangely compelling as you iterate on previous failures and try new combinations. Blue Prince is a welcome change of pace, which serves as a rewarding, cerebral headscratcher.
Avowed
Obsidian leapt from CRPG to first-person action RPG with Avowed, setting this fantasy tale in the same world as their Pillars of Eternity games and using lush color palettes to bring this fantasy tale to life. On your quest to find the source of a mysterious plague, you’ll journey across a vibrant, fantastical land, meeting a cast of fascinating supporting characters.
With flashy spellcasting and a playful approach to the ‘save the world’ style adventure, it’s a refreshing addition to the field crowded with grimmer and darker games. On the strength of good writing, an excellent setting, solid humor, and smooth combat, Avowed is easily one of the best story games on Xbox Game Pass.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Not since the days of LucasArts has Indy had it this good, and MachineGames has done them proud with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It’s a huge leap to take a whip-wielding archaeologist into first-person, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle manifest to stick the landing. By emphasizing cinematic setpieces, Great Circle manages to skillfully safeguard the playful adventurousness at the heart of the original Indiana Jones films.
The entire length of Great Circle is packed with set-piece levels that allow you to go over, under, and around every obstacle you encounter, or you can just kill some nazis, which is always a great time. Also noteworthy is how good a job Troy Baker does at filling in for Harrison Ford. Baker proves himself as a worthy stand-in for the live-action Indy.
Roboquest
Riding under most people’s radar, Roboquest is a fantastic roguelite shooter that will invite countless replays as you try out different robo-classes and every type of robo-gun under the robo-sun. The story is playful, the music is packed with energy (thanks to Noisecream), and the gameplay lives at the important but elusive intersection of difficulty avenue and one-more-time street.
A good roguelite clicks when you reach the point in your build where you get just the right item or perk, and suddenly you become an elder god of destruction, dishing out defeat to your enemies like it’s all-you-can-eat pizza night at the ninja turtle community center. Roboquest is a very good roguelite and delivers these moments with consistency. Just beware of hubris, because pride comes about five seconds before an errant explosion ends your best run yet.
Doom Eternal
The father of the first-person shooter should show its age at some point, but Doom Eternal doesn’t have time for any of that nonsense. Just like 2016’s Doom, Doom Eternal ignores the trends adopted by most modern shooters, encouraging you to sprint from enemy to enemy like a bat out of hell. Doom Eternal embraces excessive, cathartic violence in a manner wholly consistent with 1993’s original Doom.
A lot of the fun comes straight out of how Eternal rewards aggressive play, trading cover for frenetic shooting and brutal melee finishers that cause enemies to spray out ammo and health. This luxurious gameplay loop is uplifted by Mick Gordon’s frantic metal soundtrack, which spurs you to do it again and again.
Grand Theft Auto 5
It’s been 12 years since its original release, and Grand Theft Auto 5 is still one of the best Xbox Game Pass games in 2025. Between all the story missions, side missions, collectibles, weird easter eggs, countless vehicles, and emergent chaos that ensues when you’re just trying to drive around, GTA 5 really does stand up as the kind of game you can play for more than a decade.
And if you ever run that well dry, there’s also GTA Online, where you can do it all again with friends, or just roleplay as a confused pedestrian. No matter your poison, GTA 5 will accommodate. In Rockstar Games’ open-world juggernaut, a city is your playground.
Hunt: Showdown 1896
Out of the swirl of new battle royale/extraction shooter games, Hunt: Showdown 1896 stands apart from the rest. Firstly, it’s set in an era where cartridge firearms are still cutting-edge, and secondly, you’re competing with other disreputable bounty hunters to track down and eliminate a horrible monster. Both of these qualities make for something genuinely distinctive.
Along the way, you’ll have to sneak past or slay smaller zombie-like enemies, loot gear from abandoned structures, and stalk through the Bayou (or Rocky Mountains, the newer map) while other players might be waiting behind every tree. It’s a tense and clever twist on the extraction formula that will keep you coming back as you figure out its secrets.
FAQs
No, games are only accessible and playable if you have an active Game Pass subscription. Think of it as the Netflix of games.
So far, no FromSoftware games have made their way onto Game Pass, so no Elden Ring.
Yes, Skyrim is available on Game Pass.
Personal taste comes into play, but Doom Eternal, the Gears of War series, and Halo are widely considered among the best Xbox games.
References
- Roboquest Soundtrack (YouTube)
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