‘Spelunky,’ ‘WWE 2K16’ among August’s free ‘Games With Gold’ titles for Xbox

By Gabe Gurwin Published July 26, 2016

Xbox’s Games With Gold program has seen a noticeable leap in quality over the past year, with such titles as Sunset Overdrive,

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The Wolf Among Us, and The Banner Saga 2 being offered recently. August continues that trend after a slight stumble in July, with a nice mix of AAA and smaller-scale games to satisfy nearly any player.

For the entire month of August, Xbox One players will be able to download Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate for free. The updated game originally launched in 2014 and received fairly positive — if not glowing — reviews from critics and fans alike. From August 16 until September 15, WWE 2K16 will also be free on Xbox One. The wrestling game featured Arnold Schwarzenegger as a pre-order bonus, but it’s not clear if he will be included in the free version.

For Xbox 360 owners, platforming gem and friendship destroyer Spelunky will be free from August 1 to 15, followed by Beyond Good & Evil HD for the remainder of the month. As with all Xbox 360 games offered through the program recently, they are also playable on Xbox One through backward compatibility.

The latter game, which originally launched on the original Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2, and PC back in 2003, became a cult hit and calls for a follow-up rival only those for Half Life 3, but director Michel Ancel’s work on the independent adventure Wild make any chance of a sequel materializing very, very slim.

This month’s Games With Gold offerings should keep you busy for a long time, but we’re hoping Microsoft begins giving away more of its first-party Xbox One library in the future. Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Dead Rising 3 would both be welcome additions, especially with new entries in both games’ series scheduled to launch in the not-so-distant future.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

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Xbox Game Pass is getting tons of new games following Black Ops 6 success

A cockpit view in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

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The biggest game coming to the service (and we mean that literally) is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Xbox and developers Asobo Studio previously reported that it will have a smaller install size than its predecessor -- 127GB versus 157GB -- but it'll also require 64GB of RAM. All of this is to help stream immense detail to the player as they fly around the world. Asobo says helped it to increase "the detail of its virtual environment by a factor of 4,000." Alongside the hyperrealistic graphics is a new career mode where you go through training and missions to become a pilot and a challenge mode where you compete against other pilots. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is coming to Game Pass at launch on November 19.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was a monumental addition to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate last week, so no week of additions to the service will live up to that for a while. Still, that didn't stop some more games from trickling onto Microsoft's subscription service in the wake of the latest Call of Duty. In fact, the games that came to the service were quite good. If you're wondering what you should be checking out next as a Game Pass subscriber after you're done with Black Ops 6, consider trying one of these games.
Ashen
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In July, A44 released Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, and it was part of Xbox Game Pass from day one. Now, the studio has brought its previous Soulslike to the subscription service. Originally released in 2018, Ashen stood out from the crowd at the time thanks to its distinct, grayish cel-shaded look and open-world design years before Elden Ring came out. Ashen still stands as one of the best indie Soulslikes ever released, so those who have never played it before should give it a shot now that it's on Xbox Game Pass. It'll also make for an enjoyable Game Pass Soulslike double-feature with Flintlock.

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It's Call of Duty week on Xbox Game Pass. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launched today, and from day one, it's a part of Game Pass Ultimate's game catalog. It's one of the big payoffs of Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Depending on how it performs, it may be one of the most important games to ever come to the subscription service. On top of that, other Call of Duty games finally got Xbox Cloud Gaming support, which required collaboration with Ubisoft because of certain concessions made during the Activision Blizzard acquisition process. If you're an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriber wondering what you should play this weekend, the obvious answer is Call of Duty.
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After four years, the Call of Duty: Black Ops series has made its grand return. It brings the series' story to the 1990s with a spy-movie-like campaign that sees players investigate a secret, nefarious organization that has infiltrated the American government. While the campaign alone is reason enough to check out the new Call of Duty on Xbox Game Pass, Black Ops 6 also features meaty multiplayer and Zombies modes. Multiplayer is as exhilarating as ever, with an emphasis being placed on an "omnimovement" system that allows players to dive, roll, and dodge enemies with a lot more freedom than they could before. Meanwhile, Zombies mode finds a solid balance between old and new mechanics. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is available via PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox Cloud Gaming with a Game Pass Ultimate subscription. It's also on PS4 and PS5.
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