During Annapurna Interactive's annual summer showcase, six indie titles have been confirmed to be making their way to Xbox Game Pass on day one in the near future. Over the past couple of years, renowned indie publisher Annapurna has been holding its own indie showcases highlighting the exciting new games its partners have in the works.
Xbox Game Pass continues to barrel ahead as the best deal in gaming, making all sorts of new titles, big and small, available to its subscribers for a monthly fee. This year, alongside Xbox's own first-party headliners like Hi-Fi Rush, Starfield, and Forza Motorsport, Game Pass subscribers have seen the likes of big third-party games joining the service, such as Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and the upcoming Bloodborne-inspired Soulslike Lies of P as well. Now, thanks to Annapurna Interactive, Game Pass subscribers have another batch of unique indie games getting ready to hit the service.
Among Annapurna's impressive whirlwind of announcements at its recent summer showcase were six games confirmed to hit Xbox Game Pass on day one later this year and beyond. These games include Cocoon, Thirsty Suitors, Bounty Star, Ghostbike, Flock, and To A T. One of the titles, Cocoon, is an indie puzzle game from the minds formerly behind indie hits Limbo and Inside. In it, players can jump in and out of worlds represented as small orbs that they can also pick up and move around to complete intricate puzzles. Thirsty Suitors, another one of the games from the show coming to Game Pass pits protagonist Jala against her exes in a turn-based RPG adventure.
Annapurna Games Coming to Xbox Game Pass:
- Cocoon - September 29
- Thirsty Suitors - November 2
- Bounty Star - Early 2024
- Ghostbike
- Flock
- To A T
Another Game Pass title from the showcase, Bounty Star, is a third-person mech combat action game in a similar vein to FromSoftware's Armored Core franchise. A mech action game such as Bounty Star seems uncharacteristic for Annapurna considering the publisher's history of toned-down, non-action, narrative-focused titles. However, it being included in Annapurna's lineup gives promise to the game's potential storytelling quality and farming mechanics.
A popular, previously-released title that showed face at Annapurna's showcase was the futuristic cat-venture game Stray. Released to positive reception last year on PC and PlayStation and even getting nominated for Game of the Year at The Game Awards, Stray is finally making its way to Xbox, though strangely not on Game Pass. A game like Stray would've been a slam dunk on Game Pass, perhaps it's waiting until closer to its August 10 Xbox release date to announce plans to hop onto the service. Nevertheless, fans of awesome indie titles on Game Pass have a lot to look forward to from Annapurna Interactive this year and into 2024.