Below, Ashen, and Hellblade lead Xbox Game Pass new additions

December is a month just loaded with giving, and Microsoft wants to get you into the holiday mood with a spate of new games joining Xbox Game Pass, and these are in addition to the games added to the service earlier in the month. Nine new titles will be added to the service over the course of this month, so let’s tear of the wrapping and see what we got.

Just like normal releases for free games and such from Microsoft, these are staggered all over December. There’s some really interesting choices here, so let’s dig in.

The first major addition is Mortal Kombat X on December 7. This gory fighting game just had a sequel teased, so it’s nice to see it coming back for one last hurrah. Continuing on next week on December 11, Kingdom Two Crowns will arrive with Pro Evolution Soccer 19 and Spintires: Mudrunner coming two days later on December 13. Spintires: Mudrunner is an amazing game all about off-roading, it has incredible terrain deformation and the driving feels realistic and heavy. It’s tons of fun just covering cars in mud in that game. Pro Evolution Soccer 19 is the latest sports offering from Konami, and features tons of football teams across multiple world-renowned leagues. That week ends with the launch of Capy Games’ Below on the 14th.Below focuses on procedurally generated dungeon-crawling with tons of spookiness and atmospheric effects that are made even better by the unique art style.

To round out the month, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice will land on December 17 while Ori and the Blind Forest and Shadow Warrior 2 end this December slate and hit on December 20. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice  is a very unique, albeit disturbing game, which takes a deep look at trauma and mental illness through some very challenging gameplay. Shadow Warrior 2 is a bloody action game with lots of over the top humor, sort of a palate cleanser after Hellblade. Ori and the Blind Forest is a platform-adventure Metroidvania video game developed by Moon Studios which is an incredible experience.

If you still haven’t made the jump over to Game Pass yet, now is the perfect time. The service gets new games every month, and it even got expanded to include PC games on Windows 10 a few months ago. If you want to join the service too, it typically retails for $9.99 every month.

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