Microsoft has occasionally offered two Xbox One games per month as part of its Games With Gold promotion, but starting in July that’s becoming the standard, the company announced.
This July represents two full years since we began giving Gold members access to amazing games, completely free. As a special thank you to our Xbox fans, we’re announcing that starting in July, Games with Gold will offer two new games on Xbox One every month.
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and So Many Me are the Xbox One games this month, with Plants vs. Zombies and Gears of War 3 for Xbox 360.
Black Flag? Not bad! In the past, Microsoft has been criticised for not only having a much smaller selection than its competition, but not exactly offering the cream of the crop, either.
Unlike PlayStation Plus, the games are staggered throughout the month. Assassin’s Creed IV and Plants vs. Zombies hit July 1, while So Many Me and Gears of War 3 arrive on July 16.
You can reach the author of this post at patrick.klepek@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @patrickklepek.
Comments
32 responses to “Xbox One’s Games With Gold Program Is Getting Way Better”
That’s a decent step forward. Stoked about Gears 3 being available, though; now I’ll have the complete trilogy!
SHIT! I forgot to get Pool Nation when it was available for the last 3 months on GWG.
*stare*
Get in there quick! You’re missing out on a true classic
Man….. MAN…. that game has the absolute WORST loading time of any game I’ve ever seen (second to Mod Nation on PS3 ugggggh). How does a frakking pool game take a literal 90-120 seconds to load on an xbox one. I got so annoyed at it that it was deleted after one game.
Right!? WTF is up with that? I only lasted one game too.
Power star Golf. Now that’s where it’s at!
I don’t know, The Witcher 3 seems to take forever to load. Playing on death march difficulty means that a not infrequently get my butt handed to me when I’m less than focused. It’s worse than Bloodborne’s old loading times I think.
Witcher 3 vs a bloody pool game haha… but yeah… extended load times are insanity.
Sweet. Hopefully enough publishers take advantage of the new backwards compatibility option that this means three or four Games with Gold on the XBOX One per month.
Well, Gears will never be made backwards compatible, as they will be issuing remastered versions for the xbone.
It’s Microsoft published so it should be part of the initial wave. I don’t think they’re too concerned with it competing with their remaster, since the originial is pretty much dead thanks to it’s extremely basic match-making. Judging from the beta Ultimate is more than just an upscale. Gears 2 and 3 have more meat on them, but I still don’t think they’d fear it too much.
@bondles According to their breakdown of the new feature it should just add all your previously purchased compatible digital titles to your XBOX One’s My Games & Apps ready to download list. In theory there’s no difference between a game you brought digitally and games you got with Gold.
I’m in the preview program… that’s exactly how it works.
Good point. I wonder if it’ll work like that?
Whoa whoa, whoa. Two new games on the Xbox One this month? I don’t believe you. One of those games must of been GWG before.
Black Flag is a SWEET game to be getting for free (if you don’t have it already).
I guess you can’t please everyone every month, but I’ll be at least a bit excited to see what’s released next from now on.
Awesome game. I bought it day one on disc, then bought it again digitally when they were in the console bundle and hitting ebay for $7 each.
Black Flag was a 360 game a couple of months ago.
It was so I think then the X1 version of Thief should be two months away!
Also unlike Playstation Plus, you keep these games when your Xbox Live subscription ends.
That’s only true for the 360 games. The xbox one games will only work while you have an active subscription, just like PS+.
See http://support.xbox.com/en-US/my-account/xbox-live-membership/games-with-gold-faq
“Do I get to keep the games?
For Xbox One, you can play them as long as you have an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. Xbox 360 free games are yours to keep.”
WHAT?!?!
When did they announce that?
Motherfuckers.
Day one!
Motherfuckers.
Fair enough, although I can’t see my subscription lapsing any time soon. I think this might be Sony’s way of easing us very slowly into the ‘games as a service’ market.
Must admit I’ve been completely addicted to Massive Chalice since I picked that up free a couple of weeks ago.
Sames.
I’ve been having some very late nights due to it. I’ve had to go cold turkey the last 2 days as 7 straight days of work and MC til 3am hasn’t been playing nice with me.
Hopefully this encourages Sony to provide actual PS4 titles on PS+. I love indies and all, but it’s about time they provided something a bit more substantial, maybe some launch titles like Killzone or Knack.
Yeah, the ‘biggest’ games we’ve had so far are probably Injustice and Ground Zeroes. I’m thinking that we might get something like Watch Dogs, Thief, Tomb Raider or Black Flag at some point. Also, Battlefield 4 might appear in the not to distant future. The only Killzone that’s ever been on Plus has been Mercenary on the Vita. It seems that Sony doesn’t like putting its own IP on the service that much, at least recently. It will mainly put out indies or digital-only games that it has helped publish.
It was always going to be slow going with AAA PS4 titles through PS+
Hell the launch titles have only just started dropping to reasonable prices (Though nobody told EB)
Own AC4 since launch – but I’ll be happy to not have to put the disc in the drive to play it.
The way it should always have been.
Agreed.
This is great – though I already own Black Flag on Wii U, PC and picked it up for Xbox One just this week 🙂
Maybe Sony and Microsoft can work
Maybe Sony and Microsoft can work out an agreement to publish their exclusive in exchange for the other party’s exclusive. Than we don’t have to buy two consoles just to play exclusive games on the other next gen console. I am looking forward to Quantum Break on my ps4. I am sure xbox one fans will welcome SF5 or Until Dawn on their xbox one.