Xbox Games With Gold For July 2022 Announced

This is getting pathetic now. Whilst I'm happy to have Thrillville (as it will mean I can sell my copy), when you look at what PlayStation offers month after month, this is not good enough.

I know the argument is that this is a 'bonus' each month - and I get that - and I also understand that Gamepass exists and the value it offers (which is monumental!) but, when PlayStation offers Crash 4, God of War (admittedly an exclusive), and Fifa in the span of three months, what Xbox offers is awful.

The worst part is the fact that there is no reason as to why, right? Xbox owns a significant number of studios now and could easily offer some back catalogue games from said studio for minimal cost then, they could use the savings from this and work with a close partner (like EA, or Activision) and secure a heavy-hitter game and actually offer something that makes people go wow. I can't remember the last time GWG has made me do that

Well, I only own Torchlight out of these... Haha

EDIT
Joking aside I just watched the trailers for the other three and I have to say they all look quite nice quirky little games.
I always add all the GWG games to my collection so that is not in dispute, but these at least look like a fun little diversion from other games. I like the look of Beasts of Maravilla Island in particular.

I always say this, people lose their minds in months like this but when they include AAA games or at least more well known games I already own them, which is worse, I get nothing. GWG is good for getting games that you wouldn't usually try or buy.

I’ll add them to the collection like I always do, but I can’t see me playing any of these if I’m honest.

Relicta looks interesting, own Torchlight but that's probably the best one of the series

too bad, so sad.... Gold lol

Lol no surprises then

They gave away Torchlight almost 3 years ago. Seem to be getting a lot of repeats on the 360 side these days even though they added a load of new titles to backwards compatability last November.

@Daniel1221 It annoys me when the brain dead claim these to be a ‘bonus’…as if they’re not part of a subscription they’re being charged for. The whole ‘but we never used to get games so they’re effectively free’ nonsense… when the value proposition of everything changes over time. The whole notion of mp behind a paywall when the majority of games are cross play with pc who don’t have mp behind a paywall is archaic and should have rightfully been questioned way before now. But Xbox consumer brains seem to run a little slower…which is why we’ve only now seen f2p removed from a paywall.

The fact is the value of gold offered has been pretty insulting since the introduction of gamepass ultimate by design. Xbox want you subscribing to that rather than Gold. They’re not oblivious to the fact that Sony have offered far move value for ps plus subscribers over the last 5 years…they simply want to test what they can get away with. This month is actually better than most (last month xbox gold got a game that had already been offered to them before via gold…)…and there is absolutely no reason for Xbox to compete with psplus. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if whoever is in charge of gold is completely bemused at players still defending its offerings.

My advice is take advantage of gold whilst you can and use it to get cheap gamepass ultimate

Ffs another game we've already gotten before? I can stand bad games on offer but giving us the same bad games again is tough

@Bleachedsmiles Game Pass I still say is not as great for Xbox as people claim it to be (this from a person that beta tested Xbox live and never stopped or paused service to this day).

It is very much like I said about DLC when first started happening back in the 360 days. Constantly said, people this is not a good thing at all. And I would always be critized, ohhhh no its greatest thing ever it adds to games! My response always was, yea sure but just wait to they start holding back content that should been released with the game and they charge you for it. So if you really want play full price for half the game you always got only to buy rest games at outrageous cost, keep on loving DLC.

And....look where we are today.

Excited to try all of them. I liked my time with torchlight 2? On game pass and just beat d3 again waiting for d4.

What's funnier is that PS Plus is besting Gold by offering PS players a game that's soon to be a Microsoft game..........Most of PS's 2022 offerings are just Microsoft stuff that doesn't go to Xbox. I understand why and most of it has nothing to do with MS decision making, but it's hilarious all the same.

@Bleachedsmiles Besting Gold is a pretty low bar but it doesn't excuse that Plus has been pretty terrible, too. It just has more moments that aren't terrible than Gold which has none.

I think the only game I ever wanted from Gold was Coffee Talk and that was about 2 years ago.

@GuyinPA75 GPU offers loads of value…it’s hard to argue against that. And one day (always one day) that value is going to hit crazy heights when Xbox’s first party starts hitting it day 1 regularly, cod hits it day 1 yearly, and Bethesda actually release their new games for it.
I imagine price will have to go up at some point…so best stacking now.

DLC I don’t share your same concerns with. When dlc first started being pushed it was to combat the trade in scene. Of course there were concerns that content was being held back to sell on at a later additional price…but these were mostly unfounded concerns. We’re not getting less content in our games than before dlc was a thing. Unless we’re looking at preorder ‘perks’ or exclusive dlc (which sadly we’re still seeing today yet each platform is charged the same).
I mean, remember the good old days when you had to buy the whole game again go get a few extra characters in street fighter? Yeah, let’s go back to those.

I do think though at some point xbox will drop gold and release a new gamepass tier at a higher price point that will have games and their dlc included in the sub. It is annoying that gamepass just grants access to the base games of say mortal Kombat, fh5 etc…so I can see complete editions of games being released on a higher tier maybe. Which frankly would suck a bit…as I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up releasing games early on a higher tier too.

But no point in worrying about something that hasn’t happened. Right now gold offers us loads of value if you’re interested in gamepass. Not so much if you just want to unlock what you already have been charged for - multiplayer content.

@NEStalgia Plus has been pretty decent for the most part. It has a couple of dodgy months per year. This month they get a game that’s probably more accomplished than anything that’s on xbox full stop…let alone on gamepass or gold.
It is going to be interesting to see how the rest of this year goes for plus though…as subs grow on the extra service. If their new tiers end up getting all the attention going forward like we saw with Xbox.
I’m super interested to see what next months extra games are going to be too compared to gamepass’s

@Bleachedsmiles I couldn't understand your sentence at first because I had "NEXT" month in my head and I'm thinking "Crash 4 good, but it isn't that good.....and it's already on XB and will soon be owned by them anyway..."

But then I realized you meant GoW.

Which.... yeah, but that's slick presentation considering the game is 4 years old, goes on sale for peanuts, is free for all subscribers with the new console, and anyone that wanted it already played it....so it's one of those "sure, we'll give out free sundae's after your all you can eat buffet" kinds of deals. Ignoring the critical praise of GoW, it would be like MS handing out Skyrim. Sure it's a great game, a praised game, but everyone's already played it, it's as expensive as toilet paper, and it's already in the sub... Thus why it wasn't that well received among PS fans as a great month, not because it's not a great game to get for free, but if they give it to you for free after virtually nobody that wants to play it doesn't already have access to it, it's kind of a taunt more than a freebie. Free candy with candy purchase.

But yeah, I do expect the Essential freebies to stop having those unexpectedly good months. It'll still have things like GoW. I expect HFW in 3-4 years or so for example. After it's already bled most of it's usable sales life including sub interest. I'm kind of surprised MS doesn't give out the first party games since they have little sales value, but, they do need to retain them to maintain sub interest. IDK how Sony will approach that. OTOH Sony's not really pushing the sub as the core platform's identity, so they might keep it really separate still.

Official video:

I never heard of these first 3, but them games really do peak my fancy. Well done!

Yawn, another poor month. I have nearly 55k points and nothing to buy as most games on xbox is not worth it to me. I wish they would add more BC games but still the same old titles... same old sales.

No not really, i just want mortal kombat 2011 free with gold and left 4 dead 2008

I'm surprised MS haven't dropped Gold, make online free and focus purely on Gamepass. Granted yes more money this way with Gold but it would make fantastic PR and give them another huge win over Plus.

THEY ARE FREE!!!!!

If you are unhappy, then make some money and buy games that suit you. Remember when xbox live was a paid subscription just to PLAY games online. like I said, if you are unhappy, then you can change the outcome to your misery by making a decent wage and purchasing the games yourself. Hey! you may even help the developers along the way.........just saying

@NEStalgia It depends how you look at it - you could say “anyone who wants it already has it” for any big AAA GOTY award winning game, couldn’t you? Fact is that service is still getting these games…
Also GoW had only been on Now for a short time, and part of the ps plus collection exclusively for ps5 owners… there’s what? 17 mill ps5’s sold…compared to 47+ mill ps plus subscribers. It’s on the new ‘extra’ tier now…but there was no extra tier at the time it came out on plus…so gets a pass there in my eyes.
GoW sold well, but it didn’t sell 47 million copies… odds are a whole load of new people are being introduced to the game. Remember, you’re in the bubble of being introduced to every big AAA release… majority of gamers are casual. They may never have played a GoW before. GoW is big for PlayStation…but it’s not Mario, you know?

Skyrim is a different kettle of fish. Released on everything countless times through various generations.

PsPlus jan - Dirt 5
PsPlus feb - UFC 4
PsPlus mar - Ghostrunner
PsPlus Apr - Hood: outlaws and legends
PsPlus may - fifa 22
PsPlus June - GoW
PsPlus July - crash 4

All fairly new games. PlayStation owners eat regularly so good with plus that they truly have no idea of starvation. Yes, GoW was already available free with every ps5. And yes, it’s a popular game that sold well. But seriously…at the same time they got GoW Xbox gold subs got super meat boy…a game that has not only been on everything, older, more sales, …but also been part of the gold subscription before!
PlayStation owners moaning at what they’re getting need to man the hell up.

Also, MS would put more their games on gold if gamepass wasn’t a thing and they had any games… gold has had the Gears games before

@kailun This guy knows the secret. Xbox loves him. You could too… in just a few simple clicks.

Torchlight is a very nice game, I played it a lot.
Never heard about the other 3...

I relish the new GWG announcements because they're often games I've never heard of, or have been on my radar for years. I have a crap-ton of games in my queue because of it, whose quality is all over the place. And that's fine with me.

How can we be certain a game is good if we don't have a truly crappy game to compare it to? What genres am I ignoring because of past biases? I understand these aren't truly "free" games, but I do pay $60 a year so I can game with my friends about once a month. These come with the package, and I would be remiss if I didn't give them a chance.

@Bleachedsmiles There's a balance. Obviously trash of the month club isn't a good balance. On the other hand, there aren't enough checks in the world that could be written to me that would convince me GoW isn't a very well calculated "just this side of trash" handout where they knew there was almost zero market to buy that game among subscribers so they were losing near zero by giving it out, either. It's a somewhat cynical move. Honestly I think Crash 4 is handout of far more considerable value than GoW. It's only 2 years old and a lot of players have probably not played it yet, and it hasn't even been all that cheap on sales yet. Sure it's not as highly praised a game, but that's just it. It's relatively new, and relatively low tie rate. What devalues it is that it's also in the rental sub, so for anyone subscribing above essentials it's a game randomly picked from the rotating rentals that you can flag to not rotate out. But if we ignore the new rental, it's still a newish game a lot haven't played, vs a relatively old game, that was one of the 3 biggest system sellers that not only has literally everyone played, but anyone playing on the newest console and subscribing ALREADY gets it for free from the sub. So the handout only has value to new players who are not playing on the current console, and people who somehow wanted to play GoW, aren't new, don't have a PS5, but also never wanted to pay $10 for it on a deep sale.....and also don't want to upgrade to the rental subscription. Which isn't very many people at all.

And I won't buy for a second that corporate didn't think that through when offering it.

Handing out the BIGGEST platform exclusive games years late, let alone that those games are already handouts for many and are deep sale games at that point sounds great on paper and scores brownie points as great games, but the reality is it's a cold calculation to provide minimal value and lose minimal sales the same as Relicta. It just has better optics from a PR angle.

I'm much more impressed with Crash 4 (if true), Planet Coaster, etc, where they're newish games with reasonably high quality/cost and isn't available to everyone for peanuts yet. Or the time they gave out a COD game during E3 as a bonus extra game. GoW wasn't a courageous giveaway, it's free sand in a desert.

There's a 0% chance they didn't run the venn diagrams of how many people that do subscribe to plus, don't subscribe to extra, don't own a PS5 for Plus Collection, don't own GoW, don't have GoW in their play history (used/rental/sold), and came to the conclusion there's a significant population that fits in that group, that wants to play play the game, but has not bought it in 4 years on deep deep sales, that would benefit from the game, in a way that will hinder sales for a sequel. Otherwise they'd not have selected that game until that number approached zero.

Ok, we'll step aside Skyrim to the next best thing. Imagine if Xbox gave out, say Fallout 4 as a freebie now? Would it really be better than Beasts? Sure it's a big big game, a first party game, but it's old, pretty much everyone that wanted it has already played it now, it sells for monopoly money, and it's already permanently in GP. How many players would really benefit from that? We wouldn't really be better off than the junk we're getting? Same as with GoW.

There's definitely a balance. The rest of your list shows that. PS hits it way more than MS, but GoW's not that example.

That's not to say Super Meat Boy is a comparatively high value offering. But rather both companies ran the numbers and determined neither game loses them $1000 in sales by giving it out, and GoW looks better in the headlines. But again, Sony wins no praise with the GoW release from me, and I'll praise them more for offering newer titles like Crash 4, Dirt 5 and Planet Coaster which actually have cash value to some amount of the player base. If the GoW freebie were 2 years ago, I'd be at the table.

Heck if Nintendo gave out MK8 I think we'd side-eye them at this point, and that's a game they still think is worth $60.

But it also highlights that, although you get to "keep" the games (only as long as you subscribe....just like permanent games in the subscriptions........) the idea of getting 2 pre-selected "free" games in the era of rental catalogs of hundreds of games is kind of antiquated. They're both rental libraries, where the library is built different ways. Imagine if Starfield were only in the GP catalogue if you were a GP subscriber launch month? The GwG/Plus freebies are kind of anachronistic now. I"m glad PS has been doing decent ones now and then, but I don't have high hopes it will last, and I don't think the "new" gamers will even notice or care.

That's not to praise the B-grade indies nobody's ever even heard of that XB is giving out. But it's also not to forget Sony keeps handing out abandoned DoA online service games and that ridiculous demo edition of Godfall, either.

@NEStalgia It is cynical yes. No business is in the business of losing money. Everything that’s given to us (that we’re effectively paying for) is weighed up and risk/reward is considered, of course. But don’t forget that these games are also used for marketing… GoW may be an older title but it comes with plenty of accolades. And you’re right, those that wanted to play GoW will have found a way by now… but again, it’s sales are far less than there are psplus subs. There’s going to be quite a few who haven’t played it, for whatever reason, that will now play it. And may discover they like it (how many times has gamepass introduced you to a game you had zero interest in making a separate purchase on yet heard good things about? It happens). Don’t forget ps4 consoles are still regularly selling in their thousands even now. And of course that’s all potential future sales for GoW2.

We are seeing too much cross over though. Games appearing on several tiers at the same time. I’d love to see gold used to offer dlc for games on games pass rather than the same games that are on it. Or offer the ultimate/complete editions…mortal kombat 11 ultimate on gold for a month then, even though MK11 is already on gamepass, we all still get something new.

@Bleachedsmiles GP has introduced me to newish games I didn't know I was interested in. I can't say it's introduced me to 4 year old games that you couldn't escape hearing about even if you tried, though.... As far as "beneficial to members" from PS, I'd say the giveaways of Bloodborne (which is niche no matter what anyone says), Beyond, Knack, The Order, etc were much more valuable for introducing games that flew below a lot of people's radars to people than GoW and TLoU1 were where everyone that wanted to play it, even slightly, already did.

Yeah, there's a lot of subscribers that haven't bought a NEW RETAIL COPY of GoW. But that pretends used, and borrowed games aren't common, and that pirated copies aren't common in many markets (where people may still subscribe for online), etc. The gap is a ton smaller than it may look. Heck, look at how poorly HFW sold on PS4, despite being the larger install base, despite the included PS5 upgrade for the $10 cheaper copy. The remaining PS4 install base just doesn't seem to be a game-buying market at this point.

But, yeah, it's marketing. But that's kinda the point. MS is giving literal trash to members. And PS is mixing total trash with good marketing, that still offers little value, and occsionally such as with Crash 4, actual value. And, maybe more on point, most of PS's offerings seem geared toward new customers these days. Like a cell phone plan's sign-up bonus that once you're in, they can just milk you forever and offer nothing. GoW ostensibly offers far more to a new PS customer than it does to an existing customer where the collective value is between nil and offensive. But, then with the Plus collection and its existence in Essential, it also offers nothing really to new customers except new-to-PS customers buying a PS*4* for the first time. But that's also the target market for Extra....where the game is already included as well.... so if it's not for new to PS4 customers (already the Extra market), and it's not for new to PS5 customers (already in Plus Collection) and it's not for existing customers (already played it if they wanted it.) Who exactly is it for?

The marketing department... I've only redeemed anything on either console 2 or 3 times this year I think. Unfortunately Planet Coaster is the one I wanted from PS and something apparently went wrong when redeeming it, and it's not in my library. I found that out a few months later. Grrrr.

I like your idea of DLC for GP games or deluxe editions of GP games. That's pretty cool and actually does add a rotating category value. The only down-side is it really only works for MS 1st party, because otherwise when games rotate out of GP, then you have useless DLC to a game you don't have access to.

Then again....that's exactly what NSO+ sells and people praise it......