The Netflix of gaming, Xbox Game Pass, seems to be growing in value with every passing day, and the subscription has just got an enormous boost in its value with the completion of the Xbox Bethesda deal. As a means of celebration, Xbox Game Pass is receiving 20 Bethesda titles this week and a future promise of day-1 access to games like The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield.
Rumor has it that multiple Ubisoft-published games would be added to the service later this year. While not confirmed news at the moment, it'd be interesting to see these games added to the service if the rumors turn out to be true.
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Easily one of the best games of 2020, Immortals Fenyx Rising is one of the better Ubisoft open-world games in recent memory. Based on Greek mythology, the game tasks the player to free the world from the clutches of Typhon. Taking cues from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and building upon others, Immortals Fenyx Rising paints a world ripe with things to do and makes sure the discoveries feel earned.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series had been moving on a downward hill lately, with Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint both receiving middling critical and commercial reception. However, the biggest blow seems to be the launch state of Ghost Recon Breakpoint which had reports of many bugs, glitches, and a broken economy. Ubisoft's resilience towards the game paid off, with the post-launch content and patches seemingly turning around the game's fate for good.
That being said, a lot of fans are still refraining to purchase the game due to its launch problems. With its addition on Xbox Game Pass, it could serve as a second chance to garner the audience that it couldn't the first time around.
Continuing with the theme of disastrous launches, Assassin's Creed Unity was the franchise's debut on the eighth generation consoles. The game was panned by critics on launch for its lackluster performance on the then-mighty PS4 and Xbox One, as well as a plethora of glitches and bugs. However, continuous updates and patches have ironed out the issues and revealed a great Assassin's Creed title underneath.
The French revolution Paris boasts some of the densest crowds in gaming and the lifelike parkour animations add a lot of flavor to the game's traversal systems. Couple that with the open-ended assassination missions and engaging co-op as well as a 60 fps on the Xbox Series X, the game can be really convincing to try out both for series veterans as well as new-comers.
One of the best stealth franchises of all time, Splinter Cell has now been into a relic of a bygone era with the last entry in the series being 2011's Splinter Cell: Blacklist. While the latest could also prove to be a strong contender for the spot, it's hard to find the methodical stealth gameplay found in the likes of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Originally released in 2005, the game holds really well today.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory has some of the best Splinter Cell maps of all time, each one of which is highly replayable and built with ghosting in mind. Fans of franchises like Hitman and Dishonored are sure to find a lot to love here, and its success could even warrant a remaster in the future.
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Similar to the Splinter Cell games, the Prince of Persia games have also been dormant for quite some time now. It may be unreasonable to expect the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time's remake on the service, other entries in the franchise could definitely prove to be great additions.
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within proved to be divisive among the community, particularly due to its reliance on edgy characters which were prevalent at the time. However, the expanded combat and memorable bosses make it worth a revisit. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones also introduced a bunch of new ideas to the table, but remains underappreciated to this day. Including the Sands of Time series could be a great option as there would definitely be a lot of fans willing to revisit the games for some time now.
Rayman: Legends is the latest entry in this long-running platformer series. Having released in 2013, the game has an excellent assortment of levels to punch and jump through. Xbox Game Pass falls a little short when it comes to platformers, with two notable exceptions being the Ori games and Celeste. With no new Rayman game rumored to be in development for consoles and PC, Rayman: Legends would serve well for fans in a gaming funk.
The Far Cry games have always been about ensuring one's own survival in the most hostile environments. While all games in the series are great for one reason or other, no other game carries the tag of survival as proudly as 2008's Far Cry 2. Set in civil-war infested Africa, the game tasks the player of assassinating a weapons dealer by the name of Jackal.
Far Cry 2 is one of the earliest examples of Ubisoft's systemic open-world design, with naturally spreading fires and destructible environments being the highlights. In addition to this, many subtle touches such as randomly jamming weapons and the ever-looming threat of malaria keep the player on his/her toes at all times. Fans of the series that hopped on with the later entries would find a drastically different experience to one that they might be accustomed to.