Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Persona 3 Reload leads a surprisingly strong batch of Xbox Game Pass additions

A character uses a bow and arrow in Persona 3 Reload.
Atlus

Microsoft unveiled the next batch of new Xbox Game Pass titles, which are dropping between January 18 and February 8. Of the seven new titles coming to the video game subscription service over that time span, four are new games being added on the day of their release. The most noteworthy of those games is Persona 3 Reload, Atlus’ highly anticipated remake of an RPG classic.

Persona 3 was first released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan in 2006 and came to North America just a year later. While its sequels would go on to garner a bit more immediate acclaim, Persona 3 provided the solid foundation that they all built on. It is darker than those future entries, though, as you’ll go from living your life as a Japanese teenager to shooting a gun at your own head to summon a Persona in stylish turn-based battles. Persona 3 is considered one of the best RPGs of its generation, and this remake brings the experience to modern platforms with a visual overhaul that makes it look more like Persona 5.

Recommended Videos

Digital Trends’ Giovanni Colantonio recently went hands-on with the remake and said it was a “solid way to revisit a classic RPG with a modern sheen.” It’s one of the highest-profile game releases of the first half of 2024, so it’s a significant day-one addition to the Xbox Game Pass catalog. This is the full list of games coming to the service, including strong indies like Brotato, over the next couple of weeks.

  • Turnip Boy Robs a Bank – January 18
  • F1 23 – January 18
  • Palworld – January 19
  • Go Mecha Ball – January 25
  • Brotato – January 30
  • Persona 3 Reload – February 2
  • Anuchard – February 6
The second batch of January 2024 Xbox Game Pass games
Microsoft

Microsoft also used this blog post to confirm that the Hitman: World of Assassination trilogy will leave Xbox Game Pass on January 31. These are some of the best modern stealth action games, so definitely check those three games out before they leave the service’s catalog at the end of the month.

Tomas Franzese
As a Gaming Staff Writer at Digital Trends, Tomas Franzese reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
3 new Xbox Game Pass games to play this weekend (November 8-10)
An alien in armor with a light sword standing in front of a space ship window with a planet in the background.

This is a good week for strategy game fans subscribed to Xbox Game Pass because November's first new additions to the service all fall within that genre. Two of them are real-time strategy game classics from Blizzard Entertainment, and the other is a strategic take on an arcade classic. If you're playing on a console, these additions may not mean as much to you, but for Game Pass subscribers with access to a PC, these recently added strategy game games are well worth your time.
StarCraft: Remastered
StarCraft Remastered Announcement

The original StarCraft is a monumental release for Blizzard Entertainment. It gave the studio a third pillar franchise alongside Warcraft and Diablo, was one of the first major esports games, and set a standard that most RTS games after it have tried to follow. In 2017, Blizzard released StarCraft: Remastered, updating the classics' visuals, audio, and online features; that's the version of StarCraft that has come to Xbox Game Pass. While there are more approachable RTS games nowadays, PC gamers should check out the original StarCraft if they've never played it before to better understand the foundational building blocks of the RTS genre.

Read more
The best games on Xbox Game Pass right now (November 2024)
Key art for Hi-Fi Rush.

As the Xbox Game Pass program has grown, so has our list of the best games on Xbox Game Pass. After the launch of the Xbox Series X, Microsoft has doubled down on Game Pass, and now offers well over 350 games on that console alone. To help you through option paralysis, we rounded up the top games on Microsoft's subscription platform.

Many titles are available on Xbox and PC, and some even have cross-save support. Most of the games are available for streaming on mobile, too, as long as you have Game Pass Ultimate. The Game Pass library is also constantly changing, so check out our monthly guide for addition and removal announcements.

Read more
Xbox Game Pass is getting tons of new games following Black Ops 6 success
A cockpit view in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

We know a lot of you are playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Xbox right now, but the company just announced some games coming to Xbox Game Pass -- specifically the Game Pass Standard tier -- in the first half of November.

The biggest game coming to the service (and we mean that literally) is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Xbox and developers Asobo Studio previously reported that it will have a smaller install size than its predecessor -- 127GB versus 157GB -- but it'll also require 64GB of RAM. All of this is to help stream immense detail to the player as they fly around the world. Asobo says helped it to increase "the detail of its virtual environment by a factor of 4,000." Alongside the hyperrealistic graphics is a new career mode where you go through training and missions to become a pilot and a challenge mode where you compete against other pilots. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is coming to Game Pass at launch on November 19.

Read more