Hey, I’m Ede Tarsoly, the Founder of Elder Games. I’ve been the vision keeper and main developer on my roguelite FPS Soulslinger: Envoy of Death – and what may surprise you, I’ve also been one of the two motion capture actors in it as well. In the game, all the male characters are played by me, while all the female characters are played by my wife. Today, I’d like to tell you about our setup, our process and how we were able to create custom animations with a mocap setup as an indie developer.

How my Childhood Curiosity Became my Studio’s Strength

I’ve been fascinated with motion capture ever since I was a kid, I always watched the extras on DVDs. The behind-the-scenes stuff was sometimes more exciting to me than the films themselves. I saw motion capture first being used in “The Lord of the Rings” and I knew right away that I really wanted to do this sort of stuff. However, the setup that needed to be involved was unattainable for a very long time. I continued watching a lot of content about the topic, and my passion never really faded away.

By the time the technology had become more available, and I finally had the opportunity to buy a motion capture suit, thanks to my publisher Headup, I was prepared. I’d basically been preparing for this my whole life!

We use a setup, where you put straps around your wrists and your head, and wear a suit on top, that marks every joint with a sensor. The gloves are put on separately and are much more sensitive.

Through a custom router all the data is fed into the computer. In a nutshell, as soon as you move, there’s a real-time representation of you on the screen that moves with you. I hit record, and it immediately captures the motions.

From Weeks of Preparation to One Day of Performance

The preparation phase always takes the longest. I usually know six months in advance what’s likely coming up, unless things change during development. It’s “develop, develop, develop” until a cutscene comes up, and I’ll do nothing else for two or three weeks except that one cutscene. Then it’s back to development, which is of course still the biggest part of my work. We’re still making a game, not a movie.

Especially for longer prerendered cinematics, I need to know well in advance. The 3D models, scripts voice lines all need to be ready.

Our writer, Michelle Clough, creates a very detailed script right out of the gate. She usually adds little notes like “make this cool,” which then is up to the voice actors and me. It’s always a collaborative effort, where we try to come up with something to make the script shine.

I usually choreograph an entire scene from start to finish. For example, I’ll note that a character comes in from the right while another comes from the left, so I have to walk a certain number of meters. Practicing the movements before recording usually takes three to four very intense days, repeating it over and over until it’s perfect. For example, the intro scene of the pirate character – I could tell you the entire conversation of it by heart, I’ve listened to it so many times – is an uncut two-minute scene that needed to be meticulously prepared, down to the last motion.

But it’s not just the script and stage directions that need to be good to go. One thing I learned early on from the extras of old Disney DVDs, is to send the script to the voice actors, record their performances, and then animate to the voice performance afterwards. That way, actors can perform freely instead of lip-syncing to pre-made animations. The actors already embody the characters so well, that listening to their recordings on loop while performing really inspired my motions during mocap.

Additionally, I also developed a distinct motion style for each character. The villain is very upright and calculated. The main character is closer to my natural movement. The pirate is very animated and expressive. I’m not an actor, but I try to make each character as unique as possible. Zombies and skeletons are my favorite though, with their twisted, exaggerated motions.

After all the preparation and practice, recording day is just one day. Thanks to all the preparation, I usually have the perfect recording after two or three takes. Then, I import everything into Unreal. From there, it’s about placing the camera and characters, which usually takes another two days.

Making the Invisible Visible

During motion capture, weight matters. If you pretend to hold a gun, the motion feels artificial. This is why I worked with a metallic replica of the revolver in the game. It’s heavy, so when you move with it, your body compensates naturally, and the motion looks real. Another character has a huge knife, so we tried to find something in the house that matched it and ended up using a big bread knife.

For the scenes where props can’t help you, we had to be creative to make non-existent things exist. For example, there was a scene where a spell pulls the character backwards. My wife tied ropes around my arms and pulled me while I resisted. In mocap, it looks like magic pulling the character. In another instance, for a floating enemy, I simply stacked boxes and acted on top of them.

We also did some stunts. I put a mattress on the ground for scenes where a spell knocks the character back. As it turns out: falling looks quite silly until you try to do it correctly. Of course, you instinctively try to protect yourself, but that looks bad in-game. While the end result looks great in the game, I don’t think I’d recommend this method to anyone – and I probably wouldn’t do it again!

Doing It for the Game

Overall, even while it takes a lot of time, effort and organizing, I really did enjoy every second of it, because it is something I deeply care about. A lot of people ask how I can do so much programming, writing, choreographing, and acting and I always just tell them: “It’s easy, because it’s for my game.”

I’ve only used my setup for Soulslinger: Envoy of Death so far but having a remote capture kit has already influenced what kinds of projects I’m thinking about next. It’s a strength of our studio, and I really want to plan even more projects around it. I’m so excited that Soulslinger: Envoy of Death is finally launching on Xbox Series X|S today. It is truly a work of passion, from the code to the self-recorded animations. I hope you will enjoy my wild west roguelite FPS experience and have as much fun with the game as we had creating it

Soulslinger: Envoy of Death

Headup

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

Get it now

DEATH IS CALLING – WILL YOU ANSWER?
Become an Envoy of Death, able to unleash the incredible powers that will make you the most dangerous soul in Limbo. Upgrade your character’s abilities to become the ultimate Soulslinger and take on thrilling challenges in a bloody war against the criminal cartel of the afterlife!

MEET STRAY SOULS AND MAKE ALLIES OR ENEMIES
Step into the rich and immersive world of Haven, filled with mysterious NPCs who hold the secrets to its dark history. Be wary of the allies and enemies you make as every encounter might shape your journey ahead. In this mesmerizing western-fantasy world, you will experience a tale of despair, loss, and one man’s obsession with cheating death itself.

CRAFT YOUR WEAPONS AND RISE TO VICTORY
Forge your own destiny with every run by crafting powerful weapons and unlocking permanent upgrades in Haven. Grow stronger with every new challenge and become an incredibly deadly gunslinger. Get ready for a fast-paced rogue-like FPS experience you won’t ever forget!

KEY FEATURES:
• Fast-paced, story-driven roguelike FPS set in random sequences of rooms built in a unique western-fantasy world
• Customize Soulslinger through a deep upgrade system
• Experience a tightly written story filled with loyal allies and charismatic villains. The story adapts to what you do in the roguelike gameplay
• Tons of gun fodder creeps that attack in waves, spiced up by challenging elite mobs

Love Eternal, releasing on Xbox One today,is a psychological horror platforming game set in a mysterious and ancient dilapidated castle, which serves as the prison of our abductee protagonist Maya. The predicament of Maya, an American teenager who gets spirited away in the middle of dinner from her suburban family home by a callous and jealous god, is quite the emotional whiplash for anyone, but to what end must Maya endure these trials?

Today I’ll dig into the diverse influences and ingredients that the developers of Love Eternal, brlka, mixed together in order to serve up an unsettling journey with an experimental narrative where you truly won’t know what next to expect.

For starters, brlka, comprised of siblings Toby and Sam Alden, conceived of Love Eternal as an evolution to an older platforming game they made together, simply titled Love. The original Love, made almost a decade ago, shares mechanical roots with Love Eternal in that both are platformers in the vein of masocore (a portmanteau of masochism and hardcore) inspired from the 2000s freeware era of games like Jumper, an early platforming game by Maddy Thorson long before the likes of Celeste, and the Knytt series from Swedish developer Nifflas.

These masocore challenges – and the effort required to overcome your initial apprehensions at seemingly insurmountable platforming arcs – traditionally serve as a meditation on a rhythmic cycle of failing, observing one’s mistakes and mental lapses, and returning to the breach. With Love Eternal, however, brutality in platforming is the scaffolding for Toby, the game’s principal programmer and designer, to hang the quiet terror of the game’s narrative dressing.

Love Eternal’s influences gel together with considered curation – yet it’s also accurate to say, “These are just the movies and TV that Toby was watching at the time of development!” Either way you see it, the influences that run in Love Eternal’s blood include significant works from the esoteric works of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, particularly “Pulse”  (2001); the fever dreams of “Twin Peaks” season 3 and “Paprika” (alongside all of Satoshi Kon’s other animated movies); and the inimitable 1998 anime “Serial Experiments Lain”.

The common thread is how these pieces of media parlay psychological horror, even though horror wouldn’t be considered each work’s principal genre. As it appeared to Toby, psychological horror was seemingly underrepresented in precision platforming, and they decided to use horror to express the narrative in deeply uncanny ways.

Toby has described the essence of the Love Eternal experience as the feeling that one gets after experiencing a nightmare that, when described to another person, that other person would not find immediately apparent as to what was scary about the nightmare, even though one’s direct participatory experience of the nightmare is charged with a curdling unease.

To my eye, having seen the Aldens repeatedly discuss their development journey, the themes of Love Eternal have emerged organically during development, rather than being explicitly designed into the game. For example, the theme of isolation stands out through the visual design and structural composition, with the cavernous environments of the god’s castle imposing upon the miniscule Maya who is comparatively only a few pixels tall.

The juxtaposition of Maya – who is still a child – and her isolation in the vast castle ruins viscerally convey how children often lack physical and mental autonomy, and must submit to the whims and mercies of higher powers, parents or otherwise. Taken from the view of an adult – and likely worsened if a player has the experience of parenthood – Love Eternal’s lens of childhood is abstractly horrific.

There’s horror even in the experience of a child learning to inhabit and occupy their own body as it grows and contorts in unexpected ways, though that horror isn’t explicitly violent. Even simple experiences like losing your baby teeth as new ones push out, or the awkwardness of reconciling with the image of one’s rapidly morphing body during puberty can be strange and unnerving markers of growing up.

Such is the flavor of unusual, lightly grotesque expression of body horror conveyed by Love Eternal’s gorgeously expressive pixel aesthetic and animation. This is all crafted by Sam, a professional animator and artist whose experience spans across work like the aforementioned Love to well-known franchises like “Adventure Time”.

Through character animation, Sam pushes how characters’ bodies can be depicted in pixel art, forming a sense of the uncanny with his subtle explorations of how even mundane things might move and writhe. As an example, not too far into Love Eternal’s introductory stages, Maya will come face to face with a distorted version of her father with freakishly elongated limbs, and even in the confines of pixel art, watching this man creep around like a spider (and not like your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man) tended to raise some hairs amongst those who’ve already experienced the demo of Love Eternal.

This uncanny aesthetic dovetails into Love Eternal’s mechanical and narrative pillars for  an experience that careens from somber, melancholic and ominous to bizarre, spine-chilling and occasionally unhinged. Ultimately, the team at brlka and I are confident that just about no one will be able to predict the ways in which the experience of Love Eternal unfurls its twisted tendrils.

We’re excited for players to gear up for the unrelenting challenges and eerie narrative of Love Eternal, now that the game’s out on Xbox One today!

LOVE ETERNAL

Ysbryd Games

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$9.99

$8.49

Get it now

Wander a castle built of bitter memories in LOVE ETERNAL, a psychological horror platformer with devious trials and an unsettling, experimental narrative.

Run, jump, and reverse the flow of gravity itself to escape the mind of a selfish god in this challenging precision platformer. Play as Maya, a child stolen from her family on the whim of a lonely, forsaken deity, and make your way through over 100 screens filled with spikes, lasers, switches, and traps as you unravel the horrifying secret of your new prison.

Will you find your way home, or wander these halls carved of memory forever?

Death Howl launches –today, available Day One with Xbox Game Pass. Step into a spirit world that shows no mercy. And honestly? That’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.

But here’s the thing: despite being brutally difficult, Death Howl doesn’t feel unfair. At least, that’s not how I experience it, and I hope you won’t either. Let me explain why.

The Open World

Most deckbuilders follow a familiar loop: start a run, die, start over from the beginning. It’s effective, but it can feel repetitive – especially when you hit a wall and keep banging your head against a particular encounter. Death Howl takes a different approach. Because it’s set in an open world, when you stand next to a battle you can’t win, you have options. You can wander into a different biome, hunt new spirits, craft stronger cards, experiment with fresh deck synergies, and then return when you’re ready.

We tried to avoid grinding in the traditional sense and instead aimed for exploration with a purpose. At the same time, the world doesn’t reset. Your progress persists. You’re not starting over; you’re adapting and learning.

A Fair No Mercy

Death Howl earned its “no mercy” reputation honestly. Enemies respawn when you rest at Sacred Groves. Every mistake gets punished. Common encounters, not to mention Boss fights, demand pattern recognition and tactical precision on a grid where positioning matters as much as cards and decks tailored to match the given enemy type.

But the game is fair. When you die – and you will die a lot – you respawn right before the encounter that got you. You keep your deck. You keep your knowledge. You drop “Death Howls” (our version of well-known souls), but you can retrieve them, just like in… well, you know what I’m talking about.

But you’re not locked into one path. If a particular enemy type is giving you trouble, you can experiment. Start with the battle itself – position yourself differently on the grid at the start, or, in some cases, walk around the location and approach that group of foes from a different side. But you can also pivot entirely. Explore further, build a poison deck instead of a strength-based one. The spirit world and the challenge are yours to navigate, however you choose.

How We Accidentally Made a Soulslike

I’ll be honest – we never set out to make a soulslike. We wanted to create an open-world alternative to traditional roguelite deckbuilders, something inspired by Dream Quest, Magic: The Gathering, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Breath of the Wild.

But as the design evolved, soulslike elements emerged organically. Testers kept telling us, “This feels like a soulslike.” At first, I was confused – I wasn’t even that familiar with the genre. But they were right.

The Sacred Groves that heal you but respawn enemies. The emphasis on learning enemy patterns – dodging a boar’s frontal charge, or positioning yourself behind foes with an exposed back to deal more damage. The way death teaches you rather than punishes you. It all clicked.

So we leaned into it. We embraced the tension, the deliberate pacing, the rewarding loop of observation and adaptation. But we did it our way – turn-based, tactical, card-driven.

A World Born from Grief

Underneath all the mechanics is Ro’s story. She’s a mother who’s lost her son, and she’s willing to walk through the spirit world itself to bring him back. It’s a deeply personal narrative about grief, resilience, and unconditional love.

The world reflects that sorrow. And the minimalist, woodcut-inspired pixel art uses shadows and negative space to create a realm that feels haunting, ethereal, and alive. We wanted the gameplay to mirror Ro’s internal struggle. The punishing difficulty isn’t arbitrary – it could be perceived as the weight of her journey. Every victory feels earned because it is.

Whether you’re a deck-building veteran, a soulslike enthusiast, someone who just loves tactical combat with meaningful stakes, or enjoys bold genre blends, Death Howl has something for you. And with Day One availability in Xbox Game Pass, there’s never been a better time to step into the spirit world.

Our small, three-person team poured everything into this game – art, music, design, emotion and a lot of love. It’s a reflection of our creative journey as indie creators. We hope you’ll find something here that resonates.
See you in the Spirit World.

Death Howl

11 bit studios

☆☆☆☆☆
1

★★★★★

$19.99

$15.99

Get it now

PC Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass

Step into the myth-shrouded lands where the hunter Ro begins her journey to bring her son back from the dead. Immerse yourself in the depths of the Spirit World, fractured into 4 realms and scarred with 13 distinct regions. Confront over 30 enemy types and harness the potential of more than 160 cards, forging unique archetypes and a multitude of powerful combinations. A dark journey awaits you, spanning 25+ hours of gameplay, with numerous enthralling side quests and grim boss battles.

Master Your Deck-Building Skills
Craft over 160 cards and fashion synergistic decks that focus on poison, strength, sacrifice, retaliation, backstabbing, blocking, movement, and more. Discover shamanic totems with unique effects to enhance your deck. Each new element allows you to tailor your tactical style as you prepare for your next deadly encounter.

Engage in Grid-Based Combat
Face a host of restless spirits – Skulldogs, Crackle Bursts, Woeful Seashrooms and more – in grid-based battles where each move is crucial. Test your wit by fighting unique enemy types, powerful bosses, and mini-bosses, all while taking into account environmental hazards and boons. Grow stronger, adapt your deck, and choose your battles as you explore a vast world filled with dangerous challenges.

Journey to the spirit realm
In forgotten lands shrouded by myth, Ro – a hunter from a small tribe – is overcome by grief following the death of her beloved son. Guided by voices from another world, she transcends into the realm of spirits, in hopes of bringing him back. Meet strange spirits and help them with quests and challenges that affect your deck – although not all of them may have your best interests at heart. Discover a mysterious world of forgotten lore, where darkness whispers secrets and invites you to unearth buried memories.

A year after the initial launch, the Avowed team is capping its post-launch roadmap with a special anniversary update that goes live for all today. This update, for which full details can be read over on the Obsidian site, brings with it a variety of community requested features, a host of quality-of-life fixes, and a few extra additions that the team wanted to get in just for the fans. Avowed is also launching on PlayStation 5 with the past year of updates included, allowing more players to get in and explore the Living Lands.

New Faces with New Races

To top the list of big new features being added to Avowed is the ability to choose from three new races during character creation. Joining the pre-existing human and elves are the stout and well-traveled Dwarves; the two-toned skin, hairy, and big ear having Orlans; and the large and uniquely strong Aumauan. Players will be able to choose as one of the five when starting off their adventure and bringing their envoy to the Living Lands.

If you are in the middle of your journey and want to try the new races, a new Magic Mirror has been added to the Party Camp that allows you to change your character at any time. With it you will be able to change to a new race, check out the new godlike feature variants, or—if you want a quick change of appearance —use one of the new character presets that have been put in, all without needing to create a new character.

And for those who may have completed the game but want to hop back in and try out one of the different races, you don’t have to start entirely from scratch…

Offering even more options, you can try out the custom game difficulty modifiers to make enemies hit harder (or softer), have more (or less) health, or even be faster. Modifiers can also be adjusted so that the player can do more damage, have more health, magic, and stamina resources, and even allow them to carry more items. The game can truly be played your way.

But That’s Not All!

Rounding out the anniversary update is the addition of a Photo Mode so you can capture all the best angles of your envoy, as well as your companions or just the Living Lands, and share them with your friends. A brand new weapon type – the quarterstaff – lets you fulfill your archmage dreams. Plus, there are a host of quality-of-life updates like improved lighting, the ability to skip previously unskippable conversations with a certain god, and some enemies respawning to keep areas lively.

For those who are making their return to Avowed to check out the anniversary update, welcome back. If this is your first time in the Living Lands, you are about to enter a world of wondrous flora and fauna, exceptional exploration, and satisfying combat. The team has added a ton to the game since its initial launch, from community requested features like more abilities for the fighter and ranger skill trees, arachnophobia mode, enemies being able to use player abilities, and a host of other changes. The fate of an island is up to you; forge it to your will.

Avowed is available now for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, Xbox Cloud, PlayStation 5, Battle.net, and Steam for $49.99 for the standard edition and $59.99 for the premium edition. It is an Xbox Play Anywhere title and available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

Avowed Premium Edition

Xbox Game Studios

☆☆☆☆☆
858

★★★★★

$59.99

$41.99

Get it now

Premium Edition includes:
– Avowed base game
– Up to 5 days early access
– Two Premium Skin Packs
– Access to Avowed Digital Artbook & Original Soundtrack

Welcome to the Living Lands, a mysterious island filled with adventure and danger.
Set in the fictional world of Eora that was first introduced to players in the Pillars of Eternity franchise, Avowed is a first-person fantasy action RPG from the award-winning team at Obsidian Entertainment.
You are the envoy of Aedyr, a distant land, sent to investigate rumors of a spreading plague throughout the Living Lands – an island full of mysteries and secrets, danger and adventure, and choices and consequences, and untamed wilderness. You discover a personal connection to the Living Lands and an ancient secret that threatens to destroy everything. Can you save this unknown frontier and your soul from the forces threatening to tear them asunder?

The Weird and Wonderful Living Lands
The Living Lands is a place that feels foreign yet somewhat intrinsic to you as it feels the island itself is calling out to you for help. Explore an island home to many different environments and landscapes, each with their own unique ecosystem.

Visceral Combat to Play Your Way
Mix and match swords, spells, guns, and shields to fight your way. Dig into your grimoire for spells to trap, freeze or burn enemies, bash them with your shield, or use range bows to attack from a distance.

Companions as part of your journey
Companions from a spread of species will fight alongside you, with their own unique set of abilities. From a former mercenary to an eccentric wizard, they will be part of your journey with your choices shaping them as you help them with their quests.

© Microsoft 2025. All Rights Reserved. Microsoft, Obsidian Entertainment, the Obsidian Entertainment logo and Avowed are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Acceptance of Microsoft Services Agreement and Privacy Statement required to play. Microsoft account registration required for cross-platform play. Internet connection required. Features, online services, and system requirements may vary by country and are subject to change or retirement over time.

Avowed Standard Edition

Xbox Game Studios

☆☆☆☆☆
1306

★★★★★

$49.99

$34.99

Get it now

PC Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass

Welcome to the Living Lands, a mysterious island filled with adventure and danger.
Set in the fictional world of Eora that was first introduced to players in the Pillars of Eternity franchise, Avowed is a first-person fantasy action RPG from the award-winning team at Obsidian Entertainment.
You are the envoy of Aedyr, a distant land, sent to investigate rumors of a spreading plague throughout the Living Lands – an island full of mysteries and secrets, danger and adventure, and choices and consequences, and untamed wilderness. You discover a personal connection to the Living Lands and an ancient secret that threatens to destroy everything. Can you save this unknown frontier and your soul from the forces threatening to tear them asunder?

The Weird and Wonderful Living Lands
The Living Lands is a place that feels foreign yet somewhat intrinsic to you as it feels the island itself is calling out to you for help. Explore an island home to many different environments and landscapes, each with their own unique ecosystem.

Visceral Combat to Play Your Way
Mix and match swords, spells, guns, and shields to fight your way. Dig into your grimoire for spells to trap, freeze or burn enemies, bash them with your shield, or use range bows to attack from a distance.

Companions as part of your journey
Companions from a spread of species will fight alongside you, with their own unique set of abilities. From a former mercenary to an eccentric wizard, they will be part of your journey with your choices shaping them as you help them with their quests.

Happy Tuesday everyone – I know this day of the week is always better when it comes with a side of games coming soon, games available today, and updates you might have missed for some of your favorites. Let’s jump in!

Available Today

Aerial_Knight’s DropShot (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, and PC) – February 17
Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

Available Day One with Xbox Game Pass! Aerial_Knight’s Dropshot is a high-speed, stylized FPS / Race where you play as Smoke Wallace. As a kid, he was bitten by a radioactive dragon, turning his skin purple and giving him the power to fire bullets from his fingertips. Race rivals, fight dragons, shoot smart, and look cool when you land.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, and PC) – February 17
Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a first-person, action-adventure game set in the never-before-seen Western Frontier of Pandora. You, a Na’vi, were abducted, trained and molded by the human militaristic corporation RDA to serve their purpose. Fifteen years later, you’re free but find yourself a stranger in your birthplace. Reconnect with your lost heritage, discover what it truly means to be Na’vi, and join other clans to protect Pandora from the RDA. Plus, enjoy the new third person update to experience Pandora from a whole new perspective.

Avowed (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) – February 17
Now with Game Pass Premium

A year of updates comes to an end with new playable races, New Game Plus Mode, Photo Mode, custom game options, a new weapon type in the quarterstaff, and a host of gameplay fixes and improvements. This update offers a perfect time to both start or return to your journey in the Living Lands.

Coming Soon

Death Howl (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, and PC) – February 19
Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass

Already available on PC in Game Pass, journey through the sorrowful spirit world in a soulslike deck builder. Craft cards and claim powerful totems to defeat the woeful spirits lurking in the mystical lands. Unravel the tale of a grieving mother in her desperate attempt to defy death and bring back her son.

EA Sports College Football 26 (Cloud and Xbox Series X|S) – February 19
Game Pass Ultimate

EA Sports College Football 26 is now on The Play List. Rep your colors across 136 FBS schools featuring over 300 authentic coaches, 2,700 new plays, and 10,000 college athletes with upgraded abilities. Ultimate subscribers can play now with EA Play, then score a Supercharge Pack from February 19–March 20 and save 10% on EA digital purchases.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition (Cloud and Console) – February 19
Game Pass Ultimate, Premium

Explore a legendary dark fantasy open world as monster slayer Geralt of Rivia in an epic quest to find his daughter — the Child of Destiny — Ciri. Follow a branching story full of choice and consequence across distinct regions, enjoying everything The Witcher 3 has to offer through the Complete Edition.

TCG Card Shop Simulator (Game Preview) (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, and PC) – February 24
Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass

Open and manage your own local game store. Stock shelves with the latest booster packs or crack them and collect the cards for yourself. Set your own prices, hire staff, host events, and expand your card shop.

Dice A Million (PC) – February 25
Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

Available Day One with Xbox Game Pass! Have you ever tried to roll 1,000,000 on a set of dice? No? Build the right bag of die, and you might just pull it off. The luck of the roll is in your capable Hand, decked out in powerful rings, with more than a few tricks up the sleeve.

Towerborne (Full Game Release) (Console, Handheld, and PC) – February 26
Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass

Towerborne is launching as a complete game from an in-progress preview on February 26. The full release adds more story, areas, enemies, and progression, with updated difficulty and balance for different playstyles. Cosmetic rewards are now earned through gameplay, along with many polish and quality improvements. With launch you’ll also get offline play and optional online co-op.

Final Fantasy III (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) – March 3
Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass

With the power of light nearly eclipsed by the power of darkness, only the crystals’ four chosen adventurers can save the world.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) – March 3
Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a thrilling Action RPG, set amid the chaos of a civil war in 15th Century Bohemia. You are Henry of Skalitz – an ordinary man doing extraordinary things – caught in a gripping tale of revenge, betrayal and discovery as he embarks on an epic journey.

In Case You Missed It

Menace (Game Preview) (PC) – February 5
Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

Command a strike force of marines, mercenaries, and criminals in the lawless Wayback system, cut off from the Core Worlds. Unite factions to face an unknown threat. Deploy tanks, walkers, and infantry with a massive selection of equipment to choose from, train your troops, plan operations, and engage in tactical battles.

Diablo II: Resurrected (Console and PC) – February 11
Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass

See the latest updates with Diablo II: Resurrected here! Play the definitive Diablo II experience now with Xbox Game Pass, featuring remastered versions of Diablo II, the Lord of Destruction expansion, and more.

High on Life 2 (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, and PC) – February 13
Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

An intergalactic conspiracy threatens the fate of humanity! Team up with a wide cast of talking alien guns as you shoot, stab, and skate your way through exotic locales across the galaxy to take down the bad guys and save your favorite species (humans)!

Game Updates

Overwatch: Season 1: Conquest (Console and PC) – February 10
Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

Season 1: Conquest launches Overwatch’s next big story as five new Heroes arrive together, bringing fresh playstyles and a faction-driven Conquest event. Choose your side as Overwatch and Talon collide, with evolving gameplay and a narrative that shapes the future.

In-Game Benefits

Microsoft Mahjong (PC) – February 24
Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, Essential, PC Game Pass

Find your focus in Microsoft Mahjong! Get in the zone with soothing sounds & tranquil scenes as you pair tiles to solve the board. Ramp up difficulty, tackle Daily Challenges, and increase clarity as you master Achievements. Lock into laid-back fun as you recharge with Mahjong.

Leaving February 28

The following games are leaving the Game Pass library soon. Jump back in to tie up any loose ends or save up to 20% off your purchase to keep the fun going!

• Monster Train (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Expeditions: A MudRunner Game (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Injustice 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War (Cloud, Console, and PC)

As always, we’ll be back here soon for more games, more updates, and if you keep an eye on @XboxGamePass, more memes. Talk soon!

For the last few weeks, Blizzard has been going big. Blizzard Showcase brought together the four key titles – Overwatch, Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone – and gave the space to bring their updates, announcements (and some surprises!) in their own ways. It’s all a part of the road to BlizzCon 2026: the year of Blizzard’s 35^th anniversary, not to mention the 30^th anniversary of Diablo, and the 10^th anniversary of Overwatch. This is the perfect space in time to look back at the universes that have brought us together and look forward to the future.

For Blizzard President, Johanna Faries – speaking on the Official Xbox Podcast  – the Showcase has been a combination of careful planning and happy serendipity:

“We’ve been really thoughtful about [giving] our players what they’re hoping for, and hopefully delight them and surprise them in some big ways. I think those have landed. And we’ll just continue to sort of prime what we hope to be a very, very big year as we continue on here in 2026.

“Our franchise teams, and our game teams within those franchises, think a lot about, ‘What do we want to do next year? What do we want to do five years from now?’ Maybe, ‘What do we want to do 10 years from now?’ And we’ve organized our thinking and our strategic planning to make sure that comes together in a really thoughtful way. It’s very intentional how we’ve slate planned into the future.

“At the same time, the inorganic part was we sat back well over a year ago, and I said, ‘Look, there’s something bigger going on here, and I think we can marry this. I think we can make this a party on behalf of all of Blizzard Entertainment.’ And hopefully if you’re a fan of Blizzard, you’re gonna feel something bigger than just, ‘Oh, I got what I needed from Overwatch’ or, ‘I got what I needed from Diablo.’”

That idea – that this is a celebration of momentum across Blizzard, not just a series of game announcements – comes with a key extra detail: this is going to be a massive year. Showcase represents what Blizzard has to show us now, but its 2026 is far from over – not least with a return to the legendary BlizzCon later this year.

“Right now, we have a huge swath of announcements that our games have just brought forward. And why I say that is I think we’re pretty excited to say: There’s still BlizzCon coming in this calendar year, right? Imagine what else we’re stacking up.

“We’ve got to execute on that. We’ve got to make sure we’re delivering in a big way. But I think the teams are cooking. They’re very excited to bring some major announcements, maybe some surprises.”

We certainly haven’t seen everything Blizzard, and its games, will have to offer this year – but the wider point of this moment is to set the table for the future of the company. Blizzard is celebrating 35 years of existence by preparing for the next 35 years.

“I think there’s just an energy around this moment and how this is sort of a launching pad for a big future. It’s very fulfilling to be able to come into work and feel busy in that way, pressure in that way, stakes in that way. I think we’re all really proud of being able to try and pull it off. But again, it’s many years in the making.”

As Faries makes clear, that long-term thinking is being applied per-franchise, and per-game – making sure that it’s not just Blizzard’s future being considered, but how each individual title can thrive:

“What do we want the next 35 years to look like? What’s the vision? What’s the direction? We’ve set a lot in motion with respect to that, making sure we’re clear on it, making sure we’re coordinated on it, making sure that every year from this moment forward, there’s sort of a reliability that players can depend on us to launch in big ways, launch in surprising ways. Maybe take some zags!

“Not everything’s going to hit. That’s gaming. But in many ways, let’s understand where we are going – not only as a company, but by franchise, by game, right? I think at minimum, if you were to ask any of our major teams right now, ‘Hey, what’s your plan for the next three-, four-plus years?’, they have a very clear answer.

“I think this is just very much the beginning – I know you often kind of hear that – but I think ’26, in many ways, really represents a long road ahead of us in terms of things to be excited about.”

You can hear much more from Johanna Faries about Blizzard Showcase, BlizzCon, and Blizzard’s games on the Official Xbox Podcast right now