Microsoft Wants to Launch “Full Portfolio” of ZeniMax, Activision Blizzard Games on Game Pass Day One

Atlus has announced an Expansion Pass for Persona 3 Reload, which is going to bring Persona 3 FES’ The Answer as part of its third wave in the form of the DLC titled Episode Aigis -The Answer-. And similar to the base game itself, it turns out is DLC is also going to be available at no additional cost to Game Pass subscribers- well, some of them, at least.

The full release of Final Fantasy XIV on Xbox Series X|S is coming later this month on 21st March, with a Starter Edition of the game being bundled in as an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate perk until 19th April.

During the latest Xbox Partner Preview, 11 bit Studios released a new trailer for The Alters, outlining its gameplay and story. As Jan Dolski, players find themselves stranded on a planet with a burning sun and must survive at all costs to return home.

It's a new month, which means a new set of games arriving on Microsoft's Game Pass subscription service. The arrivals begin today with stompy, old school shooter Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, and will continue before the advent of spring with the mechs-and-plants craft 'em up Lightyear Frontier and telekinetic adventure Control Ultimate Edition, among others.

The first games coming to during March 2024 have been announced, and there are a few surprises to go with the expected day-one games. We already knew about the impending release of MLB The Show 24 and Lightyear Frontier, but there are a couple of older faces and others to keep the kids occupied.

Microsoft has announced the first wave of titles coming to Game Pass subscribers for March, starting with Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun for cloud, PC and consoles. PAW Patrol World arrives for the same platforms on March 7th, followed by SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated on March 12th.

Update:

Surprise! Dead Island 2 has popped up as part of the Xbox Game Pass subscription, despite not being listed by Microsoft when it revealed a list of late February Xbox Game Pass titles earlier this week.

Will this year’s Call of Duty launch day one on Game Pass? Xbox boss Phil Spencer has suggested it will.

For the best part of this generation, Sony’s been pressured by a vocal part of the gaming community to borrow Xbox Game Pass’ unproven business model with PS Plus. The platform holder eventually decided to take a half-step, merging PS Now with its existing subscription but resisting the urge to add day one first-party software to the service. It’s described this strategy as unsustainable.

Four Microsoft first-party games will launch on Sony's PlayStation 5 and the Nintendo Switch, the company confirmed late Thursday after weeks of speculation over its exclusive titles releasing on rival platforms. The announcement came on the Official Xbox Podcast from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who also shed further light on the reasons behind Xbox's business decision and confirmed that the next generation of Xbox consoles were in development. Microsoft has not yet revealed the four Xbox exclusives coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch, but The Verge reported that said games would be Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves and Grounded.

With Activision Blizzard now officially part of Xbox, it was obviously going to be only a matter of time before its games started appearing on Game Pass. That process is set to kick off on March 28, with Diablo 4 being the first game to join the service– but though the action RPG is joining the service’s catalog, it turns out not all subscribers are going to be able to dive in.