Best Local Co-Op Games to Play on Xbox Game Pass

This unforgiving turn-based strategy series was adored by its niche audience back in the ’90s. After 2001, the franchise dropped off the map for more than ten years until 2012’s X-COM: Enemy Unknown . The title received more attention than usual for the genre and managed to break into the mainstream audience. A sequel came out in 2016, ratcheting up the difficulty and arsenal of weaponry. Rarely do such difficult games garner such a player base, but this decade has seen intense challenges gain a new appreciation with this series and games like Dark Sou

However, despite its clunky mechanics, Mafia 2 features a compelling and mature story of Vito Scaletta’s rise to power in the ranks of the Falcone crime family. Fans of Yakuza’s more dramatic and political mob stories will love the struggles of Vito and his relationships with friends and fam

Updated April 13, 2024 by Michael Llewellyn: The Yakuza series was originally an action series in the Kiryu saga and became a fully-fledged turn-based JRPG when Ichiban took over as the series protagonist. The series’s appeal comes from its depiction of Japanese culture and folklore in a modern-day setting or the historically set Like a Dragon: Ishin. This list has been updated to include more games that fans of the Yakuza series may en

Life and death are inevitable parts of existence. All things born will eventually leave this place, and while no one quite knows where they go, traces of their time on Earth linger after they leave. This doesn’t solely apply to living beings, eit

Silent Hill 2 from 2001 stands as one of the greatest horror games ever made and pushed the medium forward with its nuanced story about guilt, trauma, and lust. The next entry was a worthy successor, though the series never again reached the second game’s artistic heights. Things looked up in 2014 when Silent Hills was announced through the enigmatic demo P.T. The title, a collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, was tragically canceled by Konami due to their drastic business restructuring. It doesn’t look like a proper Silent Hill follow up will come anytime soon. At least Kojima moved on to release Death Stranding , one of the year’s most unique AAA tit

The Yakuza series launched in 2005 to great success in Japan and developed a cult following in the West. Yakuza 0 introduced the series to a more mainstream audience. The games feature semi-open and faithfully recreated Japanese settings in famous Tokyo cities and their seedy underbelly. The first seven games in the series center around Kiryu and are self-contained stories in their own right. The eighth title, Yakuza: Like a Dragon , introduces a new protagonist, Ichiban, with unique motivations and a turn-based combat sys

Perhaps the biggest title fans were anticipating from Square Enix at E3 2019 was Marvel’s Avengers . While this game had been previously announced with a dark and ominous teaser, nearly nothing had been shown before this year’s event. The E3 2019 trailer gave fans their first look at the game and its five starting heroes: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, and Black Widow (Ms. Marvel wasn’t confirmed until later). As the trailer reveals, a celebration turns deadly, splitting up the team until five years later when new threats force them to reassem

The Mass Effect trilogy is a crowning achievement in gaming. These three titles came together to tell one epic story, and players’ decisions in one game influenced events in the sequel. After wrapping up the trilogy, BioWare got to work on a successor, Mass Effect: Andromeda . This new story came out to a lackluster reception due to its buggy nature and unexciting gamep

Due to the highly-publicized fallout between Hideo Kojima and Konami, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain came out in a brutally unfinished state. One can see where work stopped on the title’s story and it was rushed out to mar

There are actually a couple of different LEGO games available on Xbox Game Pass at the time of this writing, but LEGO Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars is arguably the best of the bunch. The LEGO games have been offering their familiar brand of local co-op action for years now, and while each game is more or less the same, they all have their own little quirks to help them stand Rhythm-Based Brawler apart from one another. Plus, fans can play through LEGO Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars on Xbox Game Pass as a refresher while they wait for the release of the upcoming LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga video g

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service has been a huge hit for the company so far, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. Xbox Game Pass gives subscribers over 100 games to play representing all kinds of genres, including plenty of local co-op ga

2019 turned out to be a year full of surprise game reveals and updates on projects that have been in the pipeline for a long time, so there were a ton of great trailers dropped throughout the year. Now that the year is coming to an end, it’s the perfect time to look back at all of the trailers dropped at E3, BlizzCon , Toyko Game Show, and every Nintendo and PlayStation direct press conference and determine which ones stand out as the best of the y