Three on PC and console, one PC exclusive (for now).
They say good things come in threes, but after taking a look at today’s new Game Pass arrivals, we have to disagree. Four is the magic number.
A quartet of titles has unlocked for subscribers, with three landing on console and another for PC players. And all of them happen to be some kind of day one launch (trust us, it’ll make sense).
New on Game Pass today
A lot of players dug A Game About Digging A Hole when it launched earlier this year, and now it’s finally made its way to Xbox. The premise is simple but strangely compelling. You start digging a hole in your backyard, and quickly discover there’s more than soil below the surface. Whatever you find, you can use to sell for cash to upgrade your equipment. As you venture deeper, you’ll come across increasingly difficult challenges standing in your way of progress. But don’t worry, along the way you’ll unlock incredibly handy items, like a jetpack, or even explosives!
Dome Keeper has been available on PC for a few years, but this roguelike mining game’s also finding its way to Xbox today, and is well worth taking a look at. Setting up base on a hostile planet, you are the eponymous Dome Keeper, charged with protecting it from waves of alien attack. But there’s another side to this game. When not fighting off monsters, you’ll use your time digging down beneath the surface, looking for resources and relics that you can then use to unlock upgrades or use to create new gadgets. Balance is key here: spend too long underground and you might not make it back in time to defend, but head back too early and you’ll miss out on collecting some valuable items.
And if you’re sat there questioning the legitimacy of the ‘day one’ label for those games, the validity of the other two on this list is indisputable…
Fancy a bit of frivolous fun? Ultimate Sheep Raccoon is the follow-up to the equally entertaining Ultimate Chicken Horse. You’ll be building your own levels once again, but this time they’ll be obstacle courses that you and your friends will need to race across on bikes. The result is, as I’m sure you can image, an whole lot of hilarity, especially when your best mate keeps being bumped off course thanks to your devilishly deployed trap!
And if you’re on PC, you can also enjoy the gorgeous retro-infused Death Howl, a challenging roguelike deckbuilder that places you in the role of Ro, a mother searching for her lost son. Journeying across various biomes, you’ll need to develop builds for region-specific strategies, facing off against hostile spirits and difficult bosses in turn-based combat across grid-based maps that reward positioning and adaptation. Exclusive to PC for now, Death Howl will be coming to console in February, so you should be able to play it there with XGP in the near future, too.
- A Game About Digging A Hole (Cloud, PC, Handheld, Xbox Series X|S) — PC Game Pass, Ultimate, Premium
- Dome Keeper (Cloud, PC, Handheld, Xbox One & Series X|S) — PC Game Pass, Ultimate, Premium
- Ultimate Sheep Raccoon (Cloud, PC, Handheld, Xbox Series X|S) — PC Game Pass, Ultimate
- Death Howl (PC, Handheld) — PC Games Pass, Ultimate
And in case you missed the earlier announcement, Xbox has also confirmed everything that’s still to come to XGP this year, and you can check that out here:
Best Game Pass deals in one place
Not got yourself a Game Pass subscription yet? These titles join the ever-growing XGP library, and you can get involved by grabbing a cheap membership below:
If you’re interested in checking out what else is coming to the service, our always-up-to-date list of future Game Pass arrivals is well worth a place in your bookmarks. And, of course, we’ve got you covered when it comes to the best Xbox deals, too!
