With a continually growing list of over 100 games, Xbox’s Game Pass can be overwhelming. Players may be hesitant to invest themselves into something new for fear it won’t be worth their time. An understandable conundrum! Maybe you still haven’t beat Elden Ring, or maybe you’re on NG+9 and can’t stop playing Elden Ring. Whatever your reason, you’re just not looking for a long-term relationship with another game right now (It’s not you, its me!)
So, here is a list of Game Pass games that are quick (and dare I say passionate) narrative experiences you can complete in a day.
You can also find some of the best hidden gems on Game Pass here.
1. What Remains of Edith Finch
Approximate Playtime: 2-3 hours
Playing What Remains of Edith Finch is like picking up a book of poetry or a collection of short stories mixed with the experience of walking through a sort of eclectic museum.
You play as the titular Edith as she explores her old family home and uncover why every member of her family seems to come to an untimely demise, playing through each family members final moments as you find your way to their room in the old Finch house.
With an enveloping atmosphere, melancholy soundscapes, and a full cast of voice over narration, plug in a pair of headphones and dedicate a couple hours to Edith Finch.
2. The Forgotten City
Approximate Playtime: 5-8 hours
Starting its life out as a popular Skyrim mod, The Forgotten City is a time traveling, open world, puzzle game where your character is sent back in time to an ancient underground Roman city.
On its face, everything seems normal, but you quickly find that everyone in this town is also trapped here and are unknowingly reliving the same day over and over again, which is the worst way to experience a Groundhog Day scenario. In order to get back to the present and break everyone out of the time loop, you have to uncover the mystery steeped in this underground city, all while abiding by the “Golden Rule”, lest you be forced to start the loop over again early.
3. Mind Scanners
Approximate Playtime: 3-4 hours
Mind Scanners is a dystopian arcade game that casts the player as a psychiatrist of sorts for a shadowy government body known as “The Structure”. In it, you’ll play through a variety of levels in the form of patients in need of having their minds “put at ease”. Using a plethora of tools, you must balance your own moral qualms and the qualms of your patients with the orders from the top brass.
Oh yeah, and you’re on a time limit. Every job you don’t complete within the time limit means less money given to you at the end of the day. And if you don’t make enough money to pay your expensive, definitely inflated, bills; well, that’s grounds for exile.
4. Exo One
Approximate Playtime: 2 hours
While there is very little in terms of story, what makes Exo One so engaging are the beauty of its psychedelic visuals and its fluidity of motion. In it, you travel from planet to planet in an unusual spacecraft capable of changing shape from a dense heavy ball to a flat and lightweight glider.
With no means of forward propulsion (other than a small double jump, we love a classic double jump) , you must be creative with the topography of a planet’s surface by rolling through the hills and gliding through the air in order to get from A to B.
5. Twelve Minutes
Approximate Playtime: 4-5 hours
Another time loop game! Twelve Minutes is played with a top down perspective and it takes place entirely in your apartment. The simple premise is that while having a birthday dinner with your wife you realize that every twelve minutes you loop back to the beginning of the evening only to have it all happen again.
Getting killed by Willem Dafoe also resets the loop.
Let me rephrase;
Twelve Minutes has an all star voice cast including James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and yes, Willem Dafoe as “man breaking into your apartment to kill you”. Talk about typecast.
6. Donut County
Approximate Playtime: 2 hours
Okay, taking a breather from dystopian futures and murder-triggered time loops, Donut County is a classic arcade-style game about a racoon who uses a cellphone app to pilot a sinkhole that eats an entire town, almost literally brick by brick. You play the role of the aforementioned sinkhole as you gobble up everything from plants, to traffic cones, to cars, and eventually entire buildings. Growing ever wider as you sink more of the town’s inhabitants and property.
It is unclear why Racoon does this, other than the fact that he is a trickster and a bad friend. However, the vibrancy of the blocky art style and the tactile dopamine release you get every time you clear a level of truly a hoarder’s amount of stuff, makes this a very low-stakes yet highly rewarding arcade game.
7. Gorogoa
Approximate Playtime: 2 hours
If What Remains of Edith Finch feels like a collection of short stories, Gorogoa feels like an impossibly intricate pop-up book.
The dream-like quality of the game makes it hard to pin down a story and you don’t play as any specific character as much as you turn pages to different moments. A child carries an empty basket through a garden, A man climbs an infinite staircase, an astronomer looks at a fluid night sky. All of these are interwoven in a latticework of puzzles that require perspective and memory to solve. What sticks with you is that each time you solve a puzzle, it is added to a larger tapestry, and you start to feel the excitement of eventually building toward one grand final image that will depict the Gorogoa, an elusive creature you’ve only seen traces and shadows of before.
Wanna play through games with a friend? Check out the best local multiplayer games you can play with your friends.
