Xbox is having an up-and-down week. Its recent Xbox Games Showcase included some exciting announcements, like a new trailer and release date for Fable, while the next day an executive admitted that 2025 price hikes have cost Xbox Game Pass millions of subscribers. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Xbox is planning a round of layoffs next month.
Xbox is looking to win players back by making Game Pass more affordable. It’s also maintaining a steady stream of exciting games arriving on the service, and Game Pass subscribers got several must-play options this week.
1
Persona 5 Royal
After Persona 6 was revealed and Persona 4 Revival got a release date at the Xbox Games Showcase, Persona 5 Royal landed on Xbox Game Pass. It’s the 2022 enhanced re-release of the original 2016 game that’s widely regarded to be the best Persona game around. You play as a transfer student at a Tokyo school who, along with other students in the Phantom Thieves of Hearts group, harness Persona powers while investigating a supernatural realm. Like every game in the series, Persona 5 Royal blends social sim sections with classic dungeon crawling. gamexplore’s 2022 review said Persona 5 Royal “is stylish, full of things to do, and still one of the most interesting JRPGs of this console generation.”
2
Beastro
Beastro was just released this week, and it’s a day-one title on Xbox Game Pass. It’s a cozy cooking game meshed with a deckbuilder where you run a restaurant. Grow ingredients, ace various cooking minigames, and create new dishes for hungry adventurers. Those new dishes will create a deck for adventurous customers who will brave the wilds in battle against monsters. Those fights play out as adorable puppet theater, and the adventurers may even bring back new ingredients for you to experiment with.
3
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
Team Ninja’s Soulslike Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty made a surprise return to Xbox Game Pass this week after its sequel was revealed on Sunday. It was previously a Game Pass mainstay, which is probably why publisher Koei Tecmo touts that over 1 million copies have been sold of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty but over 5 million players have played it. Fallen Dynasty is a challenging action RPG with deflection-focused combat, like Sekiro. “With its intricate combat system and an equally evocative setting, Wo Long is a journey worth embarking on — even if it means devoting three more hours to your next boss fight,” gamexplore’s review said.
