Despite my plans for what this month’s gaming would provide it turned out I ended up steering away from that and went for a mix of old and new titles from the Game Pass catalogue. But that’s one of the benefits of having so much choice through the service – you’re not obliged to play the latest and greatest which means there is plenty of room to be surprised with what you might find and enjoy.

First up was Back 4 Blood which I started playing from when it first became available and though I will talk about it a little more in the future it’s been great to get back into a game that’s a sequel to Left 4 Dead in every way but name. There’s plenty of similar co-op games already on Game Pass (World War Z is a great one too) but this game lends itself better to playing in bite sized chunks thanks to its level structure. I also finished the main campaign of Marvel’s Avengers and even if the multiplayer holds no interest for me there was enough to see and do in that campaign to make my time playing it worthwhile.

With Forza Horizon 5 around the corner I wanted a little more racing time so before it was delisted due to licensing issues I picked up a digital copy of Forza Motorsport 7 and have been working through the various championships. This series has always been one that I tended to play during quiet times and it’s been good to go back to it again. Okay, so it’s not on Game Pass anymore which no doubt leaves a big hole in Xbox’s library but it still holds up exceptionally well thanks to Xbox One X 4K support.

With the current holiday themes I finally loaded up A Plague Tale: Innocence and have been genuinely surprised with how much I’m enjoying the game. The linear adventure aspects interspersed with puzzles and horror themes have made it a very different game compared to my usual fare and I’m enjoying it a lot. It also received an update for the latest consoles and looks really impressive. With a sequel in development it’s as good a time as any to see if that will become another game I’ll look forward to in the future. 🙂

I’m not even going to try and guess what I will be playing on Game Pass next month. Forza Horizon 5 is likely to be the main game on the service I’ll be playing at length… at least until Halo Infinite arrives in December. 🙂