Believe it or not, there used to be a time when the video game community knew little to no subscription-based fees. Taking after the streaming service industry, though, various consoles have since constructed their own hierarchies of subscriptions, each tier of which offers players a different set of perks and privileges.
Xbox owners, for instance, can join Xbox Live Gold and, through the Games with Gold promotion, become eligible to download various video games for free. The selection changes each month, and while some are more impressive than others, players are likely to find something that speaks to them every so often.
As far as August is concerned, Xbox Live Gold subscribers will be able to download such titles as Portal Knights, Override: Mech City Brawl, MX Unleashed and Red Faction II. The first two were developed for the Xbox One, while the latter two were made for the previous generation and updated for the current one later on.
And as of yesterday, Portal Knights and MX Unleashed are now available for download and will remain free until August 15th, at which point they’ll be replaced by Override: Mech City Brawl and Red Faction II. Those games, in turn, will be available until the end of the month.
For those unfamiliar, Portal Knights is an independently-developed survival-action RPG which focuses heavily on exploration and building elements. Set in a fantasy world, the game’s mechanics have been compared to Minecraft while its look and feel was evidently inspired by the Legend of Zelda series.
Override: Mech City Brawl, meanwhile, is – as its name suggests – a brawler in which players can control robots with different abilities. The game’s promotional material promises “epic battles” in the form of 1v1, 4-person free-for-all, and two to four player co-op.
Elsewhere, MX Unleashed is a motorbike racing game created by Rainbow Studios and THQ back in 2004. It may not have the photo-realistic graphics of a contemporary title, but the gameplay is plain fun in the way that only an older outing can be. Red Faction II, meanwhile, is even older, debuting in 2002. A first-person shooter that has since developed into a cult classic with such a loyal following that the developers decided to give it a current generation face-lift, it’s certainly worth checking out.