Spring is blooming with some great games on Xbox Game Pass
The last week has been an interesting one for Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft lowered the price of the subscription service, but also announced future Call of Duty titles won’t be day-and-date releases on Game Pass. And now rumors of an à la carte version of Game Pass (or one that’s bundled with Discord Nitro) are floating around.
Amid all of that, several new games dropped on Xbox Game Pass, like Hades 2 and Tiny Bookshop. They join more than 900 titles on the service, with more must-play games dropping each month. Here are three great games that are new to Xbox Game Pass in April.
1
Vampire Crawlers
Developer Poncle has once again created a game poised to consume your life. Vampire Crawlers is a spinoff from the developer’s smash-hit Vampire Survivors. It’s a roguelike deck-builder where you explore a very old-school dungeon from a first-person perspective. You’ll gradually grow stronger, building up a deck that’s capable of defeating each level’s boss with “world-ending combos,” according to Poncle. We’re very high on Vampire Crawlers, with reviewer Giovanni Colantonio writing, “Poncle has once again created a game that takes the visual language of classic games and naturally fuses it with fresh design ideas.” He’s not alone in enjoying it as Vampire Crawlers has a 93% Critics Recommend score on OpenCritic.
2
Kiln
Kiln is the latest from Double Fine, the studio behind last year’s Keeper and 2021’s Psychonauts 2. It’s a multiplayer party brawler where you create a pot and send it out in battle. Your little pot fighter’s stats and playstyle are determined by how you create it, like how smaller pots will be speedier in the fray while larger ones will be able to tank more damage. “[Kiln] is the most fun when it is a pottery power fantasy […] This is a way to do whatever you want and make whatever you want, and the game enables you to do that,” project lead Derek Brand told Polygon. Kiln doesn’t have a ton of reviews from critics yet, but the players who are spending time with it are enjoying it as it holds a “Mostly Positive” rating on Steam at the time of this writing.
3
Replaced
Replaced launched this month after nearly a decade in development and numerous delays, some caused by the Russo-Ukrainian war affecting Sad Cat Studios as it had to move away from its Belarus-based office to being remote-first. Now that it’s here, it’s landed with critics and players; Replaced has an 80% Critics Recommend score on OpenCritic and a “Very Positive” rating on Steam at this time. It’s a timely game about an AI trapped in a human body who’s on the run while trying to expose the secrets of a shady corporation. Replaced is a 2.5D platformer that balances exploration and combat.
