As the fall season approaches, the number of high-profile Xbox Game Pass additions is rising. That said, the service also does a great job of appealing to players who are fans of more specific, niche genres. September 2024 has been particularly kind to Xbox Game Pass subscribers who are fans of simulation or strategy games that require a deeper level of engagement and dedication. These are the kinds of games I’m recommending to you this week, especially because one of them launches right into Microsoft’s video game subscription service today.
Later today, Frostpunk 2 will get its wide release on PC and be available to Game Pass subscribers. It is a more ambitious sequel to an enthralling yet stressful city-builder in which players try to survive in a harsh, snowy apocalypse. Frostpunk 2 increases the scale of things as players try to maintain the restored civilization they built from scratch in the first game. It exacerbates the already stressful nature of real-time city-builders but in a way that works perfectly in its postapocalyptic world. Frostpunk 2 is only available on PC, and you can play it there with a PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate subscription.
While Saber Interactive recently garnered much acclaim for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, it has previously courted a hardcore audience of off-roading simulation games with its MudRunner series. Earlier this year, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game was released, emphasizing the exploration aspect of off-roading. It’s still a pretty hardcore driving simulation, though, as you’ll need to constantly keep track of what gear your vehicle is in and use tools to help yourself scale tough terrain or avoid nasty pitfalls or deep water. Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is available with Game Pass across PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox Cloud Gaming. It’s also on PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
Finally, there’s Star Trucker, which somehow finds the appealing middle ground between Euro Truck Simulator and Elite Dangerous. As its self-explanatory title suggests, you’re hauling cargo on a big rig but are doing so through outer space rather than highways. It’s a pretty ingenious idea, recognizing that the cargo delivery missions and space exploration of a lot of sci-fi games actually have quite a bit in common with driving simulators. By leaning into the more hardcore aspects of the latter genre, Star Trucker offers something very novel. Star Trucker is available across PC, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox Cloud Gaming with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription.
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”