The annual gaming harvest is upon us, with February bringing enough big releases to make us consider whether we could keep our homes warm using our gaming rigs. But if you're feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of shiny new things to play this month, with all their preorder bonuses and premium editions and deluxe editions (and what's the difference between those two anyway?), then there is another way: the way of PC Game Pass.
Many Game Pass games are Day One releases, and for $11.99 a month you also have access to a library of one hundred games, so no need to overly stress on spending on just one thing only to find it flames out a couple of weeks later (looking at you, Concord). February is in fact a particularly strong month for Day One releases debuting on Game Pass, including an RPG that we've long been waiting for. Check it out, along with our other highlights.
Avowed
This is the big one. If your hankering for an open-world(ish) first-person RPG hasn't quite been sated since the days of bopping giants shins in Skyrim, then Avowed is here to scratch that itch. Sure, it may be smaller in scale and technically split into multiple large 'zones' rather than a continuous open world, but from what we've played so far it's a well written, choice-driven RPG in a sizeable and imaginative setting.
You arrive in the Living Lands as an envoy of the emperor, sent to investigate why the very land is turning people into rather fetching but very much violent mushroom-folk. There's plenty of freedom in how you approach encounters, though the swish-looking combat system—which has plenty of Bioshock-style elemental combos to play with—calls on me to try brute-forcing my way through like Gandalf in a PCP frenzy.
Sniper Elite: Resistance
The series best known for letting you plant a bullet between Hitler's legs so precisely that you can turn a single one of his plums into a particularly unappetising jelly is back. The setting is still World War II, though this time it's more of a pastoral backdrop as you aid the resistance in the French countryside.
Each of the game's seven missions is a large playground of sniping and stealthing possibilities. You're not, as the title might imply, restricted to your trusty sniper either, and this iteration of Sniper Elite continues plucking from the Hitman playbook by letting you take out enemies via creative means like poisoning, garrotting, or rigging enemy ammo so their guns backfire in their faces. Our Jake Tucker enjoyed it for its pulpy thrills, despite the lack of rizz on display from the game's star.
Orcs Must Die: Deathtrap
You may not have heard of Orcs Must Die, but the spell-twirling, sword-swingy tower defence series has been around since October 2011, with a string of successful entries. For the uninitiated, Orcs Must Die is a compelling combo of laying traps—think swinging spiked balls and pressure plates that fling enemies into pits—then joining yourself as you take control of a fantasy hero in third-person to fend off the oncoming orc hordes.
Deathtrap keeps a similar core loop to its predecessors, but also raises the stakes with a bold step into roguelike territory. There are new enemies—from flying ones that circumvent traditional traps, to undead that come out at night—that force you to think on your feet, the maps are bigger (meaning more angles for the enemy to approach from), and there's now a long-overdue four-player mode to amplify the chaos.
Madden NFL 25
The Super Bowl might be over, but you can right the season's wrongs with EA's perennial football series. Madden returns with a new 'BOOM' physics system that adds more impact to tackling. It also features improved ball carrier balance, a reworked Franchise mode with dozens of new storylines, and a new Team Builder that lets you design your team from the cleats up.
While there have been complaints that this latest iteration doesn't offer enough evolution on its predecessor to justify the price tag, that's the beauty of Game Pass: you're not paying the full sticker price. Besides, you have the freedom to judge Madden's evolution—or lack thereof—for yourself by playing previous iterations on Game Pass and comparing.
Far Cry New Dawn
There's a solid contingent of people—myself very much included—who see Far Cry 5, which is set in the stunning high-altitude wilderness of Montana, as the best in the series. Something about the idyll of the setting, the thoroughly shootable religious militias, and the killer turkeys the comes together to form the wildest, weirdest Far Cry of them all. The base game has been on Game Pass for a while, but its expansion New Dawn, which takes place 17 years after the apocalyptic events of Far Cry 5, is a new arrival.
New Dawn's loop will be familiar to series veterans: clear outposts in an open world via stealth, frontal assaults, and tamed animal companions (which now include a wild boar and cougar), and listen to larger-than-life villains ramble monologues in your face while you're tied up or otherwise incapacitated. The expansion adds in a few things, like expeditions to out-of-state locations and shared story progression when you play in co-op, but don't expect a revolution: it's very much the Far Cry as you know and likely love.
