This marks an incredible week for PC Game Pass members – on the heels of Starfield, highly anticipated titles Lies of P, Payday 3, and Party Animals all arrive this week – and October is shaping up sterling as well with the likes of Forza Motorsport and The Lamplighter’s League. That’s on top of well over a hundred more PC games available at your fingertips; sometimes the question is: where to start?
To help players find the right game for them, we asked one of our favorite variety streamers, Bruce Greene, to pick some of his favorites from the PC Game Pass library. Why him?
“I’ve been playing PC games for 25 years and I’m super impressed by what’s on PC Game Pass,” he told me, as he shared his list. “When I was asked to pick games from PC Game Pass that you would recommend, I picked like 40 or 50 cause like there were so many good games on there and I had to pare them down which is hilarious. Being a curator, it’s perfect for me.”
You’ll find Bruce’s full list of picks in the Xbox App for your Windows PC, and he dives a bit deeper into some of his selections below. You can also find more of Bruce Greene’s picks of favorite games in the PC Game Pass catalog by checking out the Xbox app for Windows PCs or follow him on Twitch.
ASTRONEER
System Era Softworks
$29.99
$23.99
Xbox One X Enhanced
PC Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass
Astroneer
“This game I played when it was first in Alpha back in, I think it was 2017, and it was kind of like this epiphany I had because generally those sorts of crafting games just don’t get me. Astroneer is like the perfect mix of survival, crafting, and exploration. And it’s also space and I love space. I just recently played through it again a few months ago and it’s practically perfect. It’s basically LEGO in space — it’s just an amazing progression of exploration and crafting.”
HITMAN World of Assassination
IO Interactive A/S
$69.99
$55.99
Hitman World of Assassination
“I liken Hitman very much to a Bethesda Softworks game, because it’s an open world, go anywhere, do anything type of game — you can be as ridiculous as you want. You can dress up as wacky characters, like a clown or a mascot or whatever, and eliminate people in discrete ways. That’s the best part of all of the newest Hitman’s in 1, 2, and 3. The World of Assassination is all of those packaged together, in addition to a rogue-light mode for Hitman. That’s even wilder because it’s like you’re playing a bunch of Hitman levels in a row, but you can’t get caught or die — which is so hard in Hitman! You can play it really fun and wacky, or you can be super “tryhard” about it and then go through the rogue-light mode. But Hitman is just like the perfect example of an open world game that really vibes with my personality.”
Microsoft Flight Simulator Standard 40th Anniversary Edition
Xbox Game Studios
$59.99
$47.99
PC Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass
Microsoft Flight Simulator
“I’ve been playing PC games for 25 years, so I have a real attachment to, in general, flight simulators. Microsoft Flight Simulator is the one that I remember first playing when I was a kid. It blows my mind because it’s like, ‘wait… how can you fly anything like a real aircraft, or even a fun fictional aircraft?’ The newest Microsoft Flight Simulator is just otherworldly. It’s almost exactly what you would want, because now you can travel and see different parts of the Earth via a flight simulator, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. I wanted to be a pilot, so yeah, it vibes perfectly with me.”
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
TaleWorlds Entertainment
$49.99
$39.99
PC Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass
Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord
“The best part of Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord is you are moving across a map, conquering different parts, very much like Civilization. However, each encounter, when you’re conquering, turns into third-person massacre. So, you get on your horse with your polearm and then battle a bunch of people individually as you’re conquering. So rather than just watching the numbers go up or down when you’re conquering specific areas of the map, you’re actually getting out there along with a bunch of other friendly or enemy AI. It’s great.”
Starfield
Bethesda Softworks
$69.99
PC Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
Bethesda Softworks
$39.99
$31.99
Xbox One X Enhanced
Xbox Game Pass
Starfield and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
“Working a full-time job and making content for YouTube, I never had time to sit down and put hours into these games. Now that I’m streaming — and I’ve been streaming for four years full-time — it’s perfect because if you want to play two hours of it, you can play a couple of hours of it. If you want to play seven or 16, you can do it and it’s like this constant stream of meeting new NPCs and combat. And the really fun, engaging stories work perfectly for not only my own personality, but also for streaming. I had never played Skyrim or, well, obviously Starfield, but I hadn’t played those games until recently. I played Skyrim for the first time for a 24-hour stream and as soon as I was done with that, I stopped the stream, rested, and then came immediately back to Skyrim because I was having so much fun.”
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
Fatshark
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
“I’ll be perfectly honest: I’ve never been attached to Warhammer or Warhammer 40K lore. I’ve been playing Warhammer miniatures for years; we’re talking 10-15 years, long before they were ever major video games like Vermintide. Darktide is the “sequel” to Vermintide, and Darktide, in my opinion hits that formula pretty close to perfection. In terms of Vermintide and Darktide, it’s Left 4 Dead, but in the Warhammer universe and it’s just fun to play again and again with your friends — I have played Darktide for 100 hours so far. Fatshark (the developers) have a really passionate community and are always wanting to make sure the game is perfected. They’re working very, very hard to make sure that that game gets better and better. It’s great.”
