We’re coming up on a year since Microsoft finished its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and the publisher’s games are slowly but surely beginning to trickle onto Xbox Game Pass. In August, the subscription service gets Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, a very hard but very good remaster of the first three games in series, originally synonymous with the first PlayStation.
The N. Sane Trilogy includes 1996's Crash Bandicoot, 1997's Crash Bandicoot: Cortex Strikes Back, and 1998's Crash Bandicoot: Warped (1998), all with improved graphics, audio, and a bunch of new features like time trials and the ability to play as Coco. The original games were punishing, and if anything, the trilogy ups some of the challenge in certain ways. These Vicarious Visions ports do a great job of showcasing the colorful platform puzzling that made Crash an icon back in the day.
Here’s everything coming to Game Pass in the first half of August:
- Creatures of Ava (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – August 7
- Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (Cloud, Console, and PC) – August 8
- Mafia: Definitive Edition (Cloud, Console, and PC) – August 13
And here’s everything leaving by August 15:
- Airborne Kingdoms (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- Offworld Trading Company (PC)
- Shadow Warrior 3 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Slim pickings overall for the late summer doldrums, but there’s also a lot of updates to existing Game Pass games this month. No Man’s Sky’s massive Worlds Part I update finally hit the Xbox and PC Game Pass versions after weeks of delay, and Sea of Thieves season 13 is also out. Finally, Dead by Daylight’s 2v8 game mode is available to try on the service until August 8. Valorant isn’t part of Game Pass, but it is free-to-play and shadow dropped on console yesterday, in case you needed a new hero-based tactical shooter to add to your rotation.
N. Sane Trilogy marks the third major Activision Blizzard game to hit Game Pass, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Diablo IV arriving earlier in the year. It seems like instead of blitzing the service with the company’s back catalog all at once—like it did with Fallout and The Elder Scrolls after the Bethesda acquisition—Microsoft will be taking its time. However, there’s still no word yet on when Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 will land on Game Pass.
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