Game Pass subscribers have a hearty January ahead of them, with two big games coming to Microsoft’s game subscription service: Capcom’s eminently replayable Resident Evil 2 remake and Ubisoft’s massive, open-world adventure Assassin’s Creed Valhalla join the lineup this month.
Resident Evil 2 was released in 2019, and it exemplifies the best of Capcom’s work to revitalize its older survival horror games. The game sees dual protagonists Claire Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy responding to the zombie outbreak in Raccoon City, with an interlocking narrative that warrants repeat playthroughs as both characters. In Polygon’s review of the game, we called it “a fresh, expensive-looking game that evokes the best memories of the PlayStation original, while also being something altogether new.”
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, from 2020, casts players as the warrior Eivor on a grand adventure set against the Viking expansion into England. Valhalla is huge — so big that Ubisoft dialed its ambitions back for last year’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage — with a sprawling narrative that can easily take more than 100 hours to complete. In our review of the game, we called Valhalla an “intriguing story … about faith, honor, and family” that’s buried inside a “massive, massive world stuffed with combat and side quests.”
Those games will be joined by Hell Let Loose, the World War 2 shooter-RTS that made its debut in 2021 after years of early access. Here’s the full rundown of January’s Xbox and PC Game Pass games for the first half of the month:
- Close to the Sun (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 3
- Hell Let Loose (cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X) — Jan. 4
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 9
- Figment (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 9
- Super Mega Baseball 4 (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 11
- We Happy Few (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 11
- Resident Evil 2 (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 16
- Those Who Remain (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 16
As previously noted, a handful of games will leave the service in January, including Grand Theft Auto 5, which will complete its third stint on Game Pass later this week.
- Grand Theft Auto 5 (cloud and console) — Jan. 5
- Garden Story (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 15
- MotoGP 22 (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 15
- Persona 4 Golden (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 15
- Persona 3 Portable (cloud, console, and PC) — Jan. 15
Xbox Game Pass costs $10.99 a month, while PC Game Pass costs $9.99 a month. PC Game Pass includes EA Play access, which offers another 70 games on PC. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, at $16.99 per month, gives subscribers access to everything — the PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass libraries, EA Play on both console and PC — as well as access to online multiplayer. Xbox Game Pass Core (formerly called Xbox Live Gold) costs $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year.