If you're not too busy taking off for the skies in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 today, may we interrupt your flight with these games? We have a selection of day one games, game benefits, indies, and more. What can we get started for you (aka: what will you put in your download queue first)?

Available Today

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) - November 19

Set sail for adventure, pirates. Sea of Thieves makes waves in the cloud this week. It's an adventure-filled GFN Thursday with four new games joining the GeForce NOW library. Plus, members are sharing their favorite locations they can access from the cloud. Follow along all month on @NVIDIAGFN social media accounts and post your own favorite cloud screenshots using #GreetingsfromGFN.

Seas the Day
Live the pirate life in the smash-hit pirate adventure game from Rare and Xbox Game Studios. Sea of Thieves takes place in an open world where players can explore the vast seas, engage in ship battles, hunt for treasure and embark on exciting quests. The Sea of Thieves environment is always changing, as various seasons bring new features to the game and offer rich rewards for pirates old and new. Visit uncharted islands in search of treasure, dive deep into narrative-focused Tall Tales, take part in events and forge a path to become a true Pirate Legend. The newest season features the mysterious Sunken City, Cursed Sloop skeleton ships and fresh cosmetics.

This "coming soon" announcement we're going to many different places with Game Pass, including the Old West, the open road, the other roads meant for toy themed cars, and even going to hell. That's just a small taste of where Game Pass is taking us, so let's dive in!

Available Today
Lightyear Frontier (Game Preview) (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S)—Available on day one with Game Pass: Start your interstellar homestead in this peaceful open-world farming adventure! Build your sustainable exofarm, grow alien crops, customize your mech, and explore a new world full of mystery with up to three friends!

MLB The Show 24 (Cloud and Console) —Available on day one with Game Pass: Swing for the fences, experience game-deciding moments, become a legend and live out your baseball dreams in MLB The Show 24.

In March last year, we announced a 10-year partnership with Boosteroid to bring Xbox PC games to more players around the world. In June, we brought the first batch of Xbox PC games to Boosteroid and today, we're taking another step in our partnership. We're bringing more high-quality, immersive PC games by giving players another option to stream select games purchased through Microsoft Store on Windows, or available with a Game Pass membership. Our partnership continues to accelerate access to players by letting them choose how and where they play their games.

Starting today, you can play Deathloop, Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Dishonored: Death of The Outsider, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Pentiment. You can also enjoy cross-play and cross-save features with your Xbox console and Windows PC for these games. We'll continue to add more hits and fan favorites from our extensive catalog of PC games over time. To get started, you'll need to gain access to the game through the Microsoft Store—either via a PC Game Pass or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, or by a direct purchase of the game through the Microsoft Store—long with a Boosteroid membership.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition had a landmark year in 2023 with the addition of the Return of Rome and The Mountain Royals expansions. More than four years after launch, the game continues to grow. Telling more stories from the world's rich history as well as bringing more civilizations to play. The next chapter for Age of Empires II: DE will be the single player focused DLC Victors and Vanquished, coming March 14th.

Introduced by its Creator, Ramsey Abdulrahim, this DLC will be like no other we've made before for AoE II: DE. Victors and Vanquished features 19 epic scenarios. Your strategy and choices will decide your fate: will you emerge as the ultimate victor, or fall as the vanquished? You'll play as Ragnar Lothbrok, Oda Nobunaga, Charlemagne and more. Each scenario features professional voice acting, new music, achievement and the quality you'd expect from an official Age of Empires scenario.

For the second half of February, we have some surprise games, some not-so-surprise games, Perks, and a DLC—plenty to get you gaming now and to prime your pre-install buttons! Whether you boot up Bluey: The Videogame to play with the family, jump into Madden NFL 24 to try and recreate the big game how you would have played it, or just want to play Maneater to see what it'd be like to be an absolute menace as a shark, we have you covered. Let's get to the games!

Available Today:
Return to Grace (Cloud, Console, and PC)
A daring space archaeologist has just unearthed the ancient resting place of a long lost A.I. god known as Grace. Adventure with various fractured A.I. personalities as you uncover the great mystery of why she was shut down all those years ago in this first-person narrative adventure set in a visually stunning '60s retro sci-fi world.

Just in time for the highly anticipated new Amazon Prime Fallout series, we're dropping the Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Anthology. The Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Anthology contains seven incredible Fallout games and will launch on April 11. Pre-order yours today! Whether you're new to Bethesda Game Studios' Fallout, or this isn't your first time stepping out of the vault, get a crash course in wasteland survival from the very beginning of the award-winning role-playing game series that blasted onto the scene in 1997. Just in time for the highly anticipated new Amazon Prime Fallout series, we're dropping the Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Anthology. The Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Anthology contains seven incredible Fallout games and will launch on April 11.

Whether you're new to Bethesda Game Studios' Fallout, or this isn't your first time stepping out of the vault, get a crash course in wasteland survival from the very beginning of the award-winning role-playing game series that blasted onto the scene in 1997. Inspired by Fallout 76's in-game perk cards, the Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Anthology contains seven collectible cards, stored in the core of a miniature bomb (though disarmed, the painted mini-nuke features an explosive sound effect!). On these S.P.E.C.I.A.L. cards, Vault-Tec's fan-favorite Vault Boy makes the best use of his Charisma points to depict the core skills of any exceptional vault-dweller, from brute Strength to sheer Luck.

Yesterday, during a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast, we shared an update on plans to continue to bring more games to more people around the world, with the exciting news that the first Activision Blizzard game on Xbox Game Pass will be Diablo IV, beginning March 28. Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Matt Booty also shared the vision on game exclusivity, the future of Xbox hardware, and the overall Xbox promise. There's a lot to talk about, so we encourage you to watch the full episode (see below).

With the combined creativity across Team Xbox, players can expect an incredible 2024 with the likes of Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, Ara: History Untold, Towerborne and more coming your way, alongside continued updates for our blockbuster franchises Call of Duty, Minecraft, Forza, The Elder Scrolls Online and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

As many of you know, two weeks ago, there were a series of changes made to the Overwatch team, as well as other teams across Blizzard. Writing a public blog is difficult in the wake of these events. I want to express gratitude for the absolutely amazing people who worked on our game that are no longer on our team. I want the community to feel informed, and I want to convey our excitement about what is to come in Season 9. To be honest, it's a lot to balance—but one of the things we've been most proud of is how we've kept lines of communication open between the team and our community, and we intend to continue that.

In that spirit, yesterday, we shared the exciting changes you are going to experience with Competitive starting in Season 9. I'd like to give a bit more insight into why we are making these changes. In our previous Director's Take, we talked about improving the game's core PvP experience. There are different ways that we look at improving the game, but one of the biggest is listening to your feedback. Season 9 starts in less than a week, and the two biggest and best changes coming to the season and a lot of it is driven by feedback from you - our players along with our team's vision to make the game more fun and challenging for everyone.

It's a new year and a time to reset, reflect and think about what the next few months has in store. Here on the Age of Empires team, we've got a LOT lined up for 2024. Instead of trying to summarize it in a lengthy blog post, we decided to make a show of it! We're excited to announce the "New Year, New Age" livestream on February 23rd at 10:00 am PT (1:00 pm ET / 18:00 UTC).

With so much to come in 2024, we want to show our players around the world what to expect from the Age of Empires franchise this year. We'll be revealing more information on some of our most anticipated titles for 2024 - so expect to see a sneak peek of Age of Mythology: Retold and a first look at Age of Empires Mobile. If you're eager to know what's next for our games already in your library, don't worry, we'll have updates for those titles too.

Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson has managed to glean information from a recent Sledgehammer Games "Town Hall" meeting—his source(s) allege that the Activision subsidiary is set for some major restructuring. Last week, Microsoft announced widespread cuts across its Xbox and Activision Blizzard departments—according to Henderson's investigations: "30% of Sledgehammer Games staff have lost their jobs." An earlier version of his report outlines a return to a "Work From Home" model for the rest of 2024, given that the studio is allegedly vacating their current space (located in Foster City, California). He suggested that this is a temporary measure: "until a new office is found near its current location. It's expected that employees will be working from home until the end of 2024."

Insider Gaming claims that it sources have leaked Activision's future plans for their highly prized Call of Duty franchise—despite layoffs and adjusted work conditions, the company's top brass are sticking with a regular release schedule: It's a move that comes at an interesting time for Sledgehammer Games, as it it was also announced during the Town Hall that the studio would be the main developer for Activision's 2027 Call of Duty title. Infinity Ward will be heading Call of Duty 2026, understood to be in the Modern Warfare universe. Call of Duty 2025 is currently planned to be a semi-futuristic Black Ops 2 sequel under the codename Saturn."

Today, the following email was delivered to all Blizzard employees by Johanna Faries, the new President of Blizzard Entertainment: "Dear Blizzard, though my official first day with you all is February 5, I want to let you know immediately that it is an honor to join you next week in this new capacity. I do so humbly and in awe of all that Blizzard has stood for and delivered to the world for over thirty years. Today also brings some mixed emotions. The loss of talented teammates in recent days is hard to hold side-by-side with the immense excitement I feel about joining Blizzard - and building on the momentum you've created for Blizzard's next chapter.

I want to thank Matt (Booty) for the introduction, bring some further clarity to today's announcement, and share more about how I see our future together at Blizzard. I understand this is a lot to take in. The news of my appointment may no doubt bring up a range of reactions, questions, even concerns. Activision, Blizzard, and King are decidedly different companies with distinct games, cultures, and communities. It is important to note that Call of Duty's way of waking up in the morning to deliver for players can often differ from the stunning games in Blizzard's realm: each with different gameplay experiences, communities that surround them, and requisite models of success. I've discussed this with the Blizzard leadership team and I'm walking into this role with sensitivity to those dynamics, and deep respect for Blizzard, as we begin to explore taking our universes to even higher heights."

Hi everyone, in January we shared with you all a status update on 3 key areas of feedback from the Forza Motorsport community that our team is working to improve—Car Progression, Forza Race Regulations and Drivatar AI. For Car Progression, today we began collecting feedback from various sources on changes that will give players freedom to equip the parts they need regardless of car level. We have additional changes to the system in various states of design and testing with plans to implement these changes as soon as possible. For Forza Race Regulations, we have enabled Race Marshals and some content creators the ability to flag in-game incidents for review to help feed changes to the adjudication model that will improve the system. Lastly, we're testing out fixes to the Drivatar AI to alleviate competitors bunching up around Turn 1 and causing the first few AI opponents to reach insurmountable leads. Beyond those key changes, we're investigating other priority fixes for the AI that improve their overall driving behavior and reduce how aggressively they stick to the racing line. These are just a few examples of where we are prioritizing work in these areas, and we will be sharing more on each soon.

While we have 3 distinct teams here at Turn 10 working on these key improvements, we're also actively developing fixes and improvements to other areas of the game. These will begin rolling out alongside Update 5 in February and will include a Skip Practice option to the Career mode pre-race menu to make it more discoverable, and a save point after finishing a Practice session so you can complete the Featured Race later. We're also developing fixes and quality-of-life improvements to the Livery Editor based on the reports you've shared with us, including custom advanced zoom for applying decals, the ability to paint upgraded brake calipers, and a prompt to save your design when exiting the Livery Editor. While this update is in active development, we wanted to share an earlier-than-usual look at some of the changes we're targeting for this release.

Starfield is the first new universe in over 25 years from the award-winning creators behind Skyrim and Fallout 4, Bethesda Game Studios. Gamers from around the world were excited to jump into this interstellar universe rich with adventure, peril, and excitement. But before anyone hops into space, they need something critical: a spacesuit. So, Xbox has partnered up with the European Space Agency (ESA) to give Starfield fans around the world a chance to win the spacesuit of their dreams, in real life, in addition to other incredible Xbox prizes. This is a physical, wearable, one-of-a-kind garment, fabricated for the most intrepid explorers.

Whether using a provided template as a base, or pushing their imagination to the limit with any creative format of their choice, fans will be asked to provide both a visual illustration of the suit from all sides—hand-drawn, 3D-rendered, or however their vision sees fit—as well as a description of the inspiration of the suit. More specifically, Xbox, Bethesda and the ESA want to know what you would wear in outer space - how would your spacesuit reflect your personal style, individuality and vision for space travel?

The Verge has obtained an internal Microsoft memo that outlines a comprehensive reduction of headcounts across a number of Xbox Game Studios departments. Microsoft's gaming division has fought tooth and nail to complete their takeover of the highly prized (~$69 billion) Activision Blizzard + King group, yet this freshly acquired operation is set suffer the most. Microsoft Gaming CEO—Phil Spencer—was tasked with delivering some unfortunate news to an unlucky 8% of the current workforce: "It's been a little over three months since the Activision, Blizzard, and King teams joined Microsoft. As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. Together, we've set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we're all aligned on the best opportunities for growth."

He continued: "As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team. The Gaming Leadership Team and I are committed to navigating this process as thoughtfully as possible. The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they've accomplished here. We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws. Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with the respect and compassion that is consistent with our values."

At the recent Xbox Developer_Direct 2024 broadcast, Obsidian Entertainment shared its most comprehensive look yet at its upcoming fantasy-action RPG, Avowed. But even that only scratched at the surface of what's coming your way this fall. On today's special episode of The Official Xbox Podcast, Avowed Game Director Carrie Patel and Gameplay Director Gabe Paramo shared an extended look at the quest showcased during Developer_Direct, providing more detail on the moment-to-moment experience of the flexible combat system, and where this side quest fits in the larger narrative of Avowed.

This latest look at Avowed gives us a good idea of what to expect from Shatterscarp, one part of the ecologically diverse island of The Living Lands, all in the same universe as Obsidian's CRPG series Pillars of Eternity. But what makes Avowed a very 'Obsidian game' goes far beyond the commonality of setting in the world of Eora. "It's really about our player-centric approach to role play," Patel shared during this week's Podcast. "The way we really approach consequence and choice is giving players the opportunities to define who they are in this world, how they want to behave - what fantasy, what challenges they want to undertake." It's all part of Obsidian's "your worlds, your way" approach, and players will feel the weight of their choices moment-to-moment with every slash, parry, and spell cast.

Fight through fearsome Vaults and avoid lethal hazards while fighting alongside your Seneschal Companion in Diablo IV's Season of the Construct. Later today (January 23), dive into a new Seasonal Questline where you'll receive your very own Seneschal Construct. As an exclusive deep dive for Season of the Construct, we're going to give an overview of how to earn your Construct and the Stones needed to increase their lethality. Here's the insider scoop on key builds you can use to obliterate your enemies.

Crush, conquer, Constructs
The Seneschal Construct is obtained during the Seasonal Questline in Season of the Construct. To begin the Seasonal Questline, you'll need to create a new Seasonal Character and select the Skip Main Campaign option to dive right in. If you have not yet completed the Main Campaign, create a new character on the Seasonal realm, complete the prologue, and then use the Skip Main Campaign option to access the Seasonal Questline. Once your Seneschal Companion is obtained, your next step is to customize them with Governing and Tuning Stones. Governing Stones give your companion a variety of abilities, ranging from launching smaller Constructs to detonate on impact to shooting down enemy projectiles. Tuning Stones modify the skills of the associated Governing Stones, such as increasing the attack speed or instantly destroying enemy barriers. Each Construct can be customized with two Governing Stones and six Tuning Stones (three Tuning stones to modify one Governing Stone), leading to a variety of potent combinations to uncover.

It's going to be a good year for Xbox players. At this week's Developer_Direct show, we provided deep-dives into five new games launching across Xbox Series X|S, PC, Game Pass and/or cloud—all of which will arrive later in 2024. Development teams at Xbox, Bethesda, and even one of our third-party partners invited you into their studios to showcase extended gameplay, reveal key information, and more. Members of each development team gave us a look into their creation, with new information, and offered a tantalizing glimpse of what's to come this year. All four of these games will arrive on day one with Game Pass, and will contribute to what's going to be another huge year for members, delivering incredible games throughout 2024.

Avowed—Launching Fall 2024
Avowed Game Director Carrie Patel gave us a first deep-dive into the gameplay in Obsidian's upcoming fantasy action RPG, from its dynamic combat, to its thoughtful reactivity, to its "colorful, vibrant, strange" world set in the Living Lands. Avowed continues Obsidian's signature style of creating games with deep themes and player choice at the forefront. Not only will you make narrative decisions that can impact changes in the game down the line, but Avowed is also looking to offer choice in combat. Gameplay Director Gabe Paramo discussed not only how varied your weaponry will be - with melee weapons, ranged guns and bows, and magic-based wands (even dual-wielded wands!) to name a few—but how flexible combat can be, allowing you to quickly change loadouts for enemy encounters. Swappable loadouts mean you can approach combat however feels right to you.

As you may have seen during our latest Developer_Direct, there's no lack of passion for gaming to be found when walking the halls at Oxide Games. The studio is full of game industry veterans who would probably bleed strategy board game pieces if you were to so much as nick them on the arm. This team has been crafting in this space for decades and has no shortage of ideas on what makes a compelling strategy game experience. Now, with Ara, they're looking to carve out their place at the top table with their own take on one of the most beloved genres in PC gaming. Ara: History Untold bills itself as a grand strategy game that's working to evolve the genre of historical grand strategy. But trying to usher in the next chapter of such a well-established space is a daunting task. Where does one even start? That's easy - look at what bothers you, and go from there.

"One of the first things we did when we started (Ara) was to identify key aspects of the [grand strategy] genre space that have always annoyed us, like areas we could improve upon—one of those is optimal strategy," explains Oxide Games Design Director Michelle Menard. "Something that plagues the genre space is that once you've kind of figured out how to win or how the game works, you've mastered it. You stop playing because you solved the problem; it was a binary problem because one of the key drivers of something like a tech tree is a static, solvable problem."

Hello, Dom here, Studio Head at Ninja Theory. As I write this, we are now in the final few months of development on Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, preparing for our launch Day One on Xbox Game Pass and across Xbox Series X|S, Windows and Steam on May 21. It was a pleasure to give you all a deeper insight into Senua's next journey, our studio and our talented team in Developer Direct.

Since the release of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Ninja Theory has transitioned from being an independent team to one that sits within Xbox Game Studios. Although this has seen change for Ninja Theory, particularly in terms of the support now available to us for striving towards our ambitions, what has not changed is our passion and commitment to our studio mission - to craft life-changing art with game changing tech.

This new journey starring the legendary archaeologist comes from the award-winning team at MachineGames—the minds behind Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus—in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games and executive produced by Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard. Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is coming later this year to Xbox Series X|S and PC and will be available day one on Game Pass. Check out the full announce from the Developer_Direct and get more insights from the team at MachineGames below.

Set between "Raiders of the Lost Ark " and "The Last Crusade," Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is a first-person, single-player adventure that will take you all over the world, uncovering clues and solving an ancient mystery. Become the adventurer in a race against sinister forces. Your journeys will take you from the hallowed halls of the Vatican and the arid deserts of Egypt to the lush and sunken temples of Sukhothai and the frigid peaks of the Himalayas.

Forza Motorsport Update 4 introduces the prestigious Daytona International Speedway—a truly iconic racetrack renowned for its marvels in engineering. Meanwhile, a new Italian Challengers Featured Tour invites you to build four staples of Italy's automotive heritage! Let's dive into the details. Update 4 will be available to download on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PCs and Steam beginning on Tuesday, January 16. New events across the Career, Featured Multiplayer and Rivals will start on Thursday, January 18.

Get ready for race weekend with Daytona, new Spotlight cars and the Italian Challengers Tour
On Tuesday we'll share details about the fixes contained in Update 4. This version is focused on new content and events, and contains only minor fixes for car and track content compared to our previous updates. Work on game fixes to address top community issues is ongoing—look out for additional improvements in Update 5 and beyond.

Our next Developer Update Livestream begins on January 18 at 9 a.m. PST and will unearth details about the next season's gameplay features, Season Journey, and quality-of-life updates. Plus, we'll also share information about the new competitive leaderboard system—The Gauntlet. Join associate director of community Adam Fletcher, game design manager Daniel Tanguay, quest designer Madeleine James, and lead class designer Adam Jackson, as they delve into the danger awaiting you in Diablo IV's third season.

We'll also hold a Q&A segment at the end of the stream for players to field their questions directly to the team. Visit our official Diablo Twitch and YouTube channels to watch live! Following the Developer Update Livestream's conclusion, we'll post another article with a video of the livestream so you can still catch up on the details if you miss them.

Since launch, we—Mojang—have been working hard together with Blackbird Interactive to bring improvements and new features to Minecraft Legends based on your feedback. With Minecraft Legends, we took a completely new approach to gameplay, so much so that we had to make up a new genre for it (kind of): action strategy. Our community has always helped us shape our games and that's something we value greatly, especially when launching a completely new game. The latest title update brought the fearless frog, witches, clangers, air choppers and a host of enhancements to the game's mechanics, making the battles in Minecraft Legends even more intense. And, thanks to your input, we've made various tweaks to the gameplay and interface, from enhanced pathfinding to a more comprehensive Battle View UI.

A DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
Since launch, we've listened to community feedback and implemented a series of changes and tweaks to make the game better. With that complete, we're now going to take a step back from development. While we won't be releasing any new content (i.e. updates, Lost Legends, or Marketplace DLC) for Minecraft Legends, the fun doesn't stop here. We'll continue having a blast playing the game alongside our community because those rowdy piglins are showing no signs of slowing down. Plus, we're leaving you one last freebie: the Bright-Eyed Hero skin, which you can claim now on Minecraft Legends Marketplace. Illuminate your path forward and continue fighting the good fight!

You're about to get an exciting look at some of the incredible games ahead with Xbox, as we present a new edition of Developer_Direct. On Thursday, January 18 at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm UK, fans will get an inside look at a selection of highly anticipated games coming to Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Game Pass. Shortly after, ZeniMax Online Studios will host The Elder Scrolls Online 2024 Global Reveal at 1pm PT / 4pm ET / 9pm UK to preview 2024's biggest update.

Presented by the game creators themselves, Developer_Direct offers an in-depth look at upcoming titles, how they're being created, and who's creating them. We'll visit MachineGames in Sweden to check in on their Indiana Jones game, swing by Obsidian's Irvine offices to see more from Avowed, head to Oxide Games' Maryland home to learn about Ara: History Untold, and take a trip to Cambridge, England to see Senua's Saga: Hellblade II from Ninja Theory. Please note that while this show won't have updates on games from Activision Blizzard, you can look forward to news from those teams later this year.