The end of 2024 was a huge moment for Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service. The day-one arrival of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the biggest possible blockbuster to add, felt like the climactic endpoint of Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. And it was swiftly followed by another huge Microsoft release: Bethesda’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, an improbably great licensed romp starring a genuine pop culture icon.

The early months of 2025 haven’t seen such splashy day-one exclusives on Game Pass, and won’t until Doom: The Dark Ages arrives on May 15. And yet this period has been just as consequential for Game Pass; it has, if anything, done even more to demonstrate the value of a Game Pass subscription. The service is finally delivering something Microsoft has always intended it would: a steady, reliable stream of brand new games you actually want to play.

It started in January, with the surprise release of the Ninja Gaiden 2 Black remaster, the sleeper fantasy adventure Eternal Strands, and dependable Nazi assassination sim Sniper Elite........

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