A new month means a new batch of games coming to Xbox Game Pass. Beginning this week, subscribers can look forward to playing a JRPG classic, engage in some social deception, or play as a mouse across console, PC, and Android via cloud gaming. You can also check out January's Game Pass additions here.

What's Coming

• Ghost of a Tale (PC) - Feb. 4
• Project Winter (Console, PC, Android) - Feb. 4
• The Falconeer (Console, PC, Android) - Feb. 4
• Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (Console, PC) - Feb. 11 (our review)
• Jurassic World Evolution (Console, Android) - Feb. 11 (our review)
• Stealth Inc. 2: A Game of Clones (Console, Android) - Feb. 11
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (Android) - Feb. 11 (our review)

What's Leaving

• De Blob (Console) - Feb. 15
• Ninja Gaiden II (Console) - Feb. 15
• World of Horror (PC) - Feb. 15
• Shadows of the Damned (EA Play/Console) - Feb. 16

DLC Updates

• The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood – members can pre-order now and save 10%
• Sea of Thieves: Season One Update – available now
• The Falconeer: The Hunter DLC – February 4

Microsoft also announced the following cloud games now have touch controls on Android:

• Donut County
• Enter The Gungeon
• Fractured Minds
• Monster Sanctuary
• River City Girls
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics
• The Walking Dead: A New Frontier – Episode 1
• The Walking Dead: Michonne – A Telltale Miniseries
• The Walking Dead: Season Two
• The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season
• Touhou Luna Nights
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• Yes, Your Grace

As always, these games are yours to keep so long as you maintain an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. If you missed the free slate of games available for Xbox Live Gold members this month, you can check out that list here. Finally, if you missed the recent drama surrounding Gold, Microsoft recently came under fire for hiking up the subscription price of Xbox Live Gold before the uproar forced them to reverse that decision only hours later. What do you think of this month's Game Pass offerings? Share your thoughts in the comments!

To this day, the Mass Effect trilogy still sparks passionate discussions and heated debates, showcasing how beloved its characters and worlds still are. The sci-fi RPG's impact on gamers and the industry cannot be denied, especially in how it experimented with player choice and its place in an authored story. As Commander Shepard, we all created our own stories while also being treated to an intense narrative packed with touching and tragic moments spanning three games. Whether you worked to gain each character’s loyalty, created your own romantic love triangles, or used paragon and renegade interrupts to showcase your leadership style, you have your own Shepard tale to tell. BioWare truly achieved something wonderful by making people care deeply about Shepard’s fight to save the galaxy. 

After years of requests, BioWare is finally remastering the trilogy with Mass Effect Legendary Edition, giving fans the opportunity to re-experience Shepard’s story on modern hardware – while also allowing a new crop of gamers to discover what made the series the popular force it is today. For the latest issue of Game Informer, BioWare sat down with us to share how it approached bringing the series to 4K, and no topic was off the table. Find out why some things (like Mass Effect 3's multiplayer) ended up on the cutting-room floor, what swayed the team in the direction of a remaster versus a remake, and how the team approached Mass Effect 1. After all, the first entry needed (and received) the biggest upgrades – and yes, that includes the Mako. 

And that’s only scratching the surface on the behind-the-scenes details. The full cover story dives into BioWare's complicated creative process, detailing the big and promising changes in full. Since this is a trilogy, we have three different covers (pictured below) that pay homage to Shepard, all featuring different beloved squadmates who helped our hero along the way. 

Speaking of upcoming games we’re excited about, this issue is packed with them! We picked 50 games we can’t wait to play and shared what makes us enthusiastic about them. As part of this massive round-up, we have also extended looks at space-combat shooter Chorus and the wild co-op adventure It Takes Two, which comes from Josef Fares, who brought us Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and A Way Out. 

We also don’t hold back on examining some recent headlines, such as looking back at Cyberpunk 2077’s troubled launch and breaking down what Lucasfilm’s return to gaming really means. And if you’re a Yakuza fan, you’ll be happy to know associate editor Blake Hester sat down with series mastermind Toshihiro Nagoshi to discuss his life, career, and why Sega should have fired him in the ‘90s. Yes, this issue is quite a read, and that’s not even everything, so look forward to more opinions, reviews, and other surprises when you open it. 

Print subscribers can expect their issues to begin arriving in the coming days/weeks. The digital edition of this issue launches in a few hours for PC/Mac, iOS, and Google Play. You can also get the latest issue through third-party apps on Nook and Kindle. To subscribe to either the digital or print version, click here.

The Mass Effect trilogy is an iconic action/RPG franchise that still has fans in love even years after release. Now the already-impressive community is about to get a lot bigger because the remaster is opening up Commander's Shepard story to gamers of this generation. To celebrate, we've got our first look at the Mass Effect Legendary Edition gameplay in a new trailer alongside a Game Informer-exclusive release date reveal. 

The beauty of the Legendary Edition is it's got something to offer for newcomers and longtime fans alike, especially those N7 fans that may have missed out on the DLC. With updated graphics, smoother UI for the first game, and over 40 included DLC to enjoy, the Mass Effect Legendary Edition is a space experience that shouldn't be slept on. 

"As Commander Shepard, rise to become the galaxy’s most elite soldier and lead an epic war to stop an ancient and ruthless enemy: the Reapers," reads the official description of the upcoming remaster. "Heart-pounding cinematic action intersects with gripping interactive storytelling in a heroic battle against the unknown where you will decide how the story unfolds. You will assemble a crew of intriguing characters, learning their own unique stories as they traverse the galaxy in the state-of-the-art ship, SSV Normandy. The fate of the galaxy lies in your hands."

The above trailer is exciting, but what all does the Legendary Edition come with? Glad you asked: 

• Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3
• Over 40 DLC, including all promo weapons, armors, and packs
• Remastered for 4K
• Enhanced visuals concerning models, lighting, shaders, and special effects
• Gameplay and Quality of Life improvements
• All available under one single launcher. 

Seeing the side-by-side comparisons of quests in the first game especially shows how much modernization went into this remaster. On Ios, seeing dimension in this lost area that Shepard must explore when learning Saren's true motives. On Noveria, seeing the backdrop added on the walkway when nothing but destruction can be seen. On Horizon, seeing the cohesive details added to connect this location to the same location seen in Mass Effect 3 alongside similar tweaks to Eden Prime; the area that started it all. 

DLC:

• Bring Down the Sky
• Genesis
• Zaeed – The Price of Revenge
• Kasumi – Stolen Memory
• Lair of the Shadow Broker
• Firewalker Pack
• Overlord
• Normandy Crash Site
• Arrival
• Genesis 2
• From Ashes
• Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut 
• Leviathan
• Omega
• Citadel

Weapons, Armors, Packs:

• Equalizer Pack
• Aegis Pack
• Firepower Pack
• Cerberus Weapon and Armor
• Arc Projector
• ME2 Alternate Appearance Pack 1
• ME2 Alternate Appearance Pack 2
• Firefight Pack
• Groundside Resistance Pack

Promos:

• Recon Operations Pack
• Collectors’ Weapon and Armor
• Terminus Weapon and Armor
• M-29 Incisor
• Blood Dragon Armor
• Inferno Armor
• Recon Hood
• Sentry Interface
• Umbra Visor
• N7 Warfare Gear
• AT-12 Raider
• Chakram Launcher
• M-55 Argus
• M-90 Indra
• Reckoner Knight Armor

The Legendary Edition doesn't, however, come with the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, which is still active to date, but it does offer hours upon hours of additional content from the vanilla trilogy experience. 

BioWare shared with Game Informer an exclusive reveal of the release date, with the remaster arriving on May 14, 2021. 

Are you excited to dive back into the combat boots of Commander Shepard once more? Sound off with your thoughts in the comment section below!

The Mass Effect 3 multiplayer is the hidden gem of the community. Being able to experience combat as an Asari, a Drell, a Turian, and more was thrilling and the mode quickly developed a very dedicated player base despite initial concerns. So why didn't BioWare bring it back for the Mass Effect Legendary Edition? We sat down with the team to find out why this addition was deemed "too complicated" during the remaster's development period. 

When speaking with Kevin Meek, environment and character director, and project director Mac Walters, the topic of multiplayer came up and why the studio decided to nix its inclusion. When speaking with Walters, he compared multiplayer to restoring a Porsche, and the analogy actually worked. 

"I had all of these analogies early on to try to help people understand what this remaster is going to be about," he said. "It's one thing to take a 1982 Porsche that needs to be fully restored, but now I want you to imagine that it was actually buried in concrete. So you've got to chip away at all of that, and every time you go to try something it's like 'is this even going to work?' Do I blow the engine turnover? You know, it's just a lot of work. And I think people underestimate what it's like to do this game, because - at every step - you are given an agonizing choice of 'is this the thing that we want to spend our time on and really try to improve it' and 'where will this lead us down the road?'" 

He added, "I feel strongly that we've chosen the things that are what the majority of our fans were most passionate about. On the topic of multiplayer, it was just really hard. Getting all of the online systems working and functionality would have been another large chunk to do but at the same time, there are a lot of other logistics involved. The economy is built completely differently. Then questions came up like, "Do we support it post-launch? What about people who are still playing multiplayer today? Do we try to find a way to somehow do crossplay between the PS3 and PS4?" 

With the work that would have been put into those logistics, the bulk of the project would have suffered, time-wise, and ultimately it was decided that multiplayer was not the road bump this remaster needed, especially since the studio has been wanting to do this for a long time now.

Considering the mass majority of players are interested due to playing as Commander Shepard once more and their single-player experience, the decision to ax multiplayer was one done in consideration of development time. While I enjoyed the ME3 multiplayer experience immensely myself, the player base pales in comparison to those that loved the base story. 

What do you think? Do you think it was a mistake to leave multiplayer out of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, or did they make the right call? Sound off with your thoughts in the comment section below!