Xbox Game Pass Kicks 2022 Off With Two 2021 GotY Contenders

The big news out of Microsoft today is, obviously, its acquisition of Activision Blizzard for the nominal fee of, oh, a small country’s GDP. The immediate impact here means major Activision-published behemoths like Call of Duty and Overwatch will become first-party games under Microsoft’s ever-growing purview, with much of the publisher’s backlog coming to Xbox Game Pass. But Microsoft’s unstoppable games-on-demand service continues to grow outside of country-seized acquisitions. Here’s everything coming to Xbox Game Pass soon.

January 18

• Nobody Saves the World (Cloud, Console, PC)

• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition (Cloud, Console, PC)

January 20

• Death’s Door (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Hitman Trilogy (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Pupperazzi (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Rainbow Six Extraction (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Rainbow Six Siege: Deluxe Edition (PC)
• Windjammers 2 (Cloud, Console, PC)

January 27

• Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master (Console, PC)

Raise your hand if you just purchased Death’s Door. First released last summer on PC and Xbox, the irresistibly charming isometric action game hit Switch and PlayStation in November. Most folks who’ve played seem to love it. (Personally, I picked up Hitman 2, plus its two excellent bonus stages, not too long ago. Ouch.)

If you keep up with the ever-shifting Game Pass library, you’re aware Microsoft’s been on a tear these past few months, adding all kinds of headline-making games out of nowhere. So it’s a little bewildering, to me at least, how little of a surprise so much of this lineup is. For ages, Microsoft’s announced new games coming to Game Pass totally out of left field, drawing wide attention purely on the basis of buzz. But we knew about most of this month’s additions — including Pupperazzi, the Hitman trilogy, the Rainbow Six games, and Nobody Saves the World, a role-playing game from the makers of Guacamelee — before today’s official announcement.

Anyway, as always, the Xbox Game Pass lineup is a constantly revolving door. The following games will leave the library on January 31:

• Cyber Shadow (Cloud, Console, PC)

• Nowhere Prophet (Cloud, Console, PC)

• Prison Architect (PC)

• Xeno Crisis (Cloud, Console, PC)