Why Are We Still Doing This?

Microsoft revealed February’s Games With Gold today and left me wondering why this is still a thing. Don’t get me wrong, free games with my subscription to a service are always nice. There’s even a couple of cool games included here. When the highlight of a month’s releases is the nearly ten year old latest installment in a nearly twenty five year old series that few people have cared about for twenty years, it makes me wonder why this is still a thing. Microsoft are clearly saving their big guns for Game Pass. Games With Gold gets scraps. It feels strange that they’re even bothering at a certain point.

To be clear though, these may not be major releases, but that doesn’t mean fans won’t find a lot to like in this month’s games. Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse may not have the cultural relevance of a series this old still trying to stay relevant, but our own Kenny McKee enjoyed it. You can check out our review to see what he thought. It will be available from February 1st to February 28th. Our Josh Speer was into Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield as well, giving it a 4/5 in his review. This fast paced action game strives to provide a couple hours of memorable action. It should be perfect for players getting it for free. Players can grab this one from February 16th to March 15th.

From February 1st to the 15th you’ll also be able to grab Hydrophobia. When terrorists on a floating city take over, heroine Kate must use her skills as an engineer to fight back. Finally, Band of Bugs is a fast paced tactical game where you take on a group of bugs as an avatar of your choice. It will be available from February 16th to the 28th.

Are there any games here you’re looking forward to grabbing? Anything that makes you grateful to still be a subscriber? Let us know in the comments below.

Andrew Thornton

Andrew has been writing about video games for nearly twenty years, contributing to publications such as DarkStation, Games Are Fun, and the E-mpire Ltd. network. He enjoys most genres but is always pulled back to classic RPG's, with his favorite games ever including Suikoden II, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Phantasy Star IV. Don't worry though, he thinks new games are cool too, with more recent favorites like Hades, Rocket League, and Splatoon 2 stealing hundreds of hours of his life. When he isn't playing games he's often watching classic movies, catching a basketball game, or reading the first twenty pages of a book before getting busy and forgetting about it.