Well, it took a while. We’re seven months out of the year and Game Pass has just received its first own offering of 2022: the party narrative game As Dusk Falls. But this is not the only title on the way to Microsoft’s on-demand gaming service. Here’s everything that will come in Game Pass over the next few weeks:
July 19th
- As Dusk Falls (cloud, console, PC)
- Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (PC)
- Watch Dogs 2 (cloud, console, PC)
July 21st
- Moto GP 22 (cloud, console, PC)
- Torment: Tides of Numenera (cloud, console)
July 29
- Inside (cloud, console, PC)
In the meantime, the following will not be available from July 31:
- Dodgeball Academy (cloud, console, PC)
- Katamari Damacy Reroll (cloud, console, PC)
- Remastered Lumines (cloud, console, PC)
- Everything (cloud, console, PC)
- Raji: an ancient epic (cloud, console, PC)
Game Pass’s big selling point isn’t just that you have instant access to a Netflix-style digital library that contains hundreds of games. Is that you get all the first part Xbox games, from stores like Forza Horizon 5 to smaller rates like the upcoming Obsidian Repentance, on the day of its release at no extra cost. Here is the full list of games released by Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft’s release label, so far this year:
Yes, Xbox Game Studios has not released any games since Halo Infinite last fall. This lack of self-releases has led some Game Pass subscribers to publicly point out how the service is not living up to its promise. But at its press conference not at E3 in June, Microsoft stated that 50 major games would go to Game Pass over the next year, many of which will be released by Xbox Game Studios.
The first is As Dusk Falls, developed by the UK-based Interior Night studio. It is not strictly exclusive, for example, to Sony games; Like all games released by Xbox these days, it will also hit PC, a measure of Microsoft’s eternal quest to play cross-platform. As Dusk Falls will also be available on Steam and the Microsoft Store. But PlayStation and Switch players won’t get it, so the game is exclusive for all intents and purposes.
I had the opportunity to play a first episode of As Dusk Falls at a preview event last month. While it’s apparently an adventure narrative game of your own choosing, a crime mystery set in the late ’90s, the story isn’t the main attraction. As Dusk Falls is really a party game. Up to eight players can play at once by linking their smartphones to the game. At any narrative crossroads, the game stops while players vote on what actions a particular character should do, but each player has a limited number of overrides that they can use to dictatorially decide the choice of group. (My choice, every time? Chaos.) It is riotous.
While it’s a blast and worth checking out with a group of friends, As Dusk Falls isn’t the kind of big first-half blockbuster that channels new subscribers to the Game Pass folds. But hey, at least it’s something.