Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, a CNET Editors’ Choice award pick, offers hundreds of games that you can play on your Xbox Series X, Series S, Xbox One and PC for $17 a month. A subscription gets you access to a large library of games with new ones added every month (like Diablo 4) plus other benefits, like online multiplayer and deals on non-Game Pass titles.
Microsoft recently added Little Kitty, Big City to the service, and the company will add these games soon.
Chants of Sennaar
Available now.
Language is a vital element of this puzzle adventure game. In Chants of Sennaar, you’re tasked with reuniting groups of people who speak different languages, like in the Tower of Babel myth. You have to decipher the languages to help solve puzzles and to bring the people back together.
EA Sports NHL 24 (cloud)
Available now.
As NHL teams hurtle through the Stanley Cup playoffs, you can too, with the latest installment in this EA Sports franchise. This entry in the series has new gameplay mechanics, including vision passing and an exhaust engine, intended to give you more control over your players and to present new challenges. So if you want to see the Las Vegas Golden Knights win the cup back to back, or you want to make absolutely sure that never happens, this game is for you.
Immortals of Aveum
Available now.
This is a first-person shooter, except you shoot magic rather than bullets. It’s like Bioshock, but instead of special powers in just one hand, you have powers in both hands! Use a magic whip to pull enemies close with one hand and then set them on fire with your other. There are about 25 spells to try, plus a skill tree with about 80 nodes to develop your own play style. Its impressively mo-capped cast includes Gina Torres, of Firefly and Suits fame.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
Available: May 21
Senua’s back. This sequel to the award-winning Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice drops you back into the harsh climate of Iceland during the Viking Age. And while Senua’s journey to save others is full of myth and storytelling, the developers worked with mental health consultants to portray Senua’s experiences of psychosis authentically.
“When the idea for telling the story of a character who experiences psychosis was first thought of, we knew instantly that we had a responsibility to understand the subject thoroughly,” Dom Matthews, developer Ninja Theory’s studio head, said in an Xbox blog post.
The developers worked with Paul Fletcher, a professor of health neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, which led to them working with other groups of people who had real, lived experiences of seeing and hearing things others don’t.
“What started off as an exercise in hoping to learn,” Matthews wrote, “transitioned into a creative collaboration where the openness, honesty and enthusiasm of our collaborators gave us the chance to not only portray Senua’s experiences truthfully — but enhance our character, her world and her story.”
Galacticare
Available: May 23
You’re the director of an intergalactic hospital in this resource-management game, and it’s up to you to help cure as many different species of aliens as possible — if they can afford it. Design, furnish and upgrade your hospital as you see fit, hire the right doctors and keep everyone happy. Just make sure you get paid first. This game definitely doesn’t sound like a scathing indictment of any real-world health care system. That would be silly.
Hauntii
Available: May 23
You’re a brave little ghost who just wants some answers in this stylistic adventure game. And since you’re a ghost, you can possess items around your environment to help solve puzzles and get through combat without a scratch.
Moving Out 2
Available: May 28
Get ready to become the best furniture arrangement and relocation technician — or FART — in this colorfully chaotic co-op game. You can work with up to three friends to help residents of the town of Packmore pack up their belongings and move to their next homes. You can also pack everything on your own, but I wouldn’t recommend that. You might slip a disc trying to lift something way too heavy.
Humanity
Available: May 30
You’re a shiba inu who has to help rebuild humanity — and by that I mean, you’re the bestest doggo doin a heckin’ save. Help guide humans through a series of puzzles by barking and giving them specific commands to avoid obstacles. And once you’ve helped save humanity, maybe you’ll get extra belly rubs and treats.
Lords of the Fallen
Available: May 30
If you played Elden Ring and thought, “I wish this game had even more grimdark elements to it, like Bloodborne,” Lords of the Fallen might be for you. You’ll traverse the lands of the living and the dead as you try to overthrow the demon god Adyr. And you’ll fight all manner of monstrosities along the way, like a colossal humanoid with an arm protruding from its mouth or a giant carrion crow that wears a human skull.
Firework
Available: June 4
You’re a rookie cop tasked with reinvestigating a massacre after a fire at a funeral in this horror puzzle game. As you dig through the investigation, you learn about the unsettling lives of the victims. The more you investigate, the more you start to question whether this was an elaborate murder or a supernatural phenomenon.
Rolling Hills
Available: June 4
Take control of a robotic sushi chef in this cozy restaurant management game. Purchase the right ingredients, improve your shop and make friends with your neighbors as you try to improve the lives of those around you.
Leaving Game Pass soon
While Microsoft is adding the above games to Game Pass Ultimate, it’s also removing six titles on May 31. So, you have some time to finish any side quests before having to buy these games separately.
For more on Xbox, here’s what Diablo 4 on Game Pass likely means for the service, other titles available on Game Pass Ultimate now and everything to know about the gaming service.
Watch this: New Xbox Leaked
