A packed fall gaming season just won’t stop. Hot off the heels of the highly anticipated release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, Supergiant Games announced Hades 2 is set to leave early access next week (and launch on Nintendo Switch systems too). While Hades 2 won’t be on Game Pass at launch, its predecessor returned to the service to celebrate its five-year anniversary.
But Hades and Hades 2 aren’t taking up all our time just yet. The weekend is the perfect time to chip away at your backlog, or try out something new. This week’s recommendations include a Game of the Year contender, a must-play multiplayer game, and one of the best horror games around.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Licensed movie tie-in games get a bad rap, but don’t let that dissuade you from playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It’s legitimately excellent, even without the cross-promotional branding. For one, Troy Baker turns in a Harrison Ford impression so frighteningly good that Ford himself expressed praise while literally on stage (if you’re familiar at all with Ford’s public persona, you know how rare that is). Rather than a hastily realized action game, the Great Circle is a first-person puzzle sandbox, closer to the likes of Dishonored or Hitman than to Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
Shrewd headscratchers and tense stealth segments anchor open-ended levels where you methodically piece together grand mysteries. You actually, dare I say, feel like you’re a globe-trotting genius tomb rai- ahem, discoverer. The Great Circle only just missed the cutoff for Game of the Year 2024, but is back in the awards conversation thanks to a recently released expansion. Sadly, the DLC is not on Game Pass, but the excellent base game is — and is well worth checking out. —Ari Notis
Golf With Your Friends
I have been thinking about golf a lot lately. It started when I interviewed Baby Steps co-creator Bennett Foddy back in August and he spent a lot of time waxing poetic about why it’s such a perfect game full of choke moments. Since then, I’ve gone on to play a whole bunch of Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots and some rounds of Walkabout Mini Golf VR with a friend. For whatever reason, I’ve got the itch in me now. So it’s a good weekend to hop back into one of the best golf games — and frankly one of the best multiplayer games — out there in Golf With Your Friends.
It doesn’t need much introduction: it’s a mini golf game that you can play with up to 12 pals. Simple. It’s an incredible hangout game that’s simultaneously a chill thing to chat over and absolutely chaotic when you have a bunch of people teeing off at the same time. If you’ve never tried it before, I recommend working it into your multiplayer rotation right alongside Peak. —Giovanni Colantonio
Dead Space
I never finished Dead Space back in 2007 (it was very scary for a preteen, okay?), but that changes this year. In addition to the original game and its sequels, the 2023 Dead Space remake is on Game Pass (available through EA Play via a Game Pass Ultimate membership). It puts you in the rig of Isaac Clarke, a miner who has to shoot, dismember, and stomp his way through zombie-like creatures that have taken over the spaceship his girlfriend is stationed on.
Dead Space isn’t just straight-up horror, though it is terrifying. It also borrows backtracking from Metroidvanias, and provides enticing side quests to ensure you want to explore every corner of the ship. In some sequences, it feels like a straight-up action game, and Isaac’s arsenal would make some third-person shooters jealous. I can play it for no longer than an hour at a time as it’s truly horrifying, much like FX’s Alien: Earth. And like that show’s best episode, Dead Space is all about the creepy confines of a spaceship where you never know what horror lurks around the corner. —Austin Manchester