It’s demon and dinosaur day on Game Pass, with two new additions

While it’s not a significant drop of games today, we’re still getting two additions to Game Pass, and that’s A-OK with us. Those games come in the form of Ark: Ultimate Survivor Edition (Cloud, Console and PC), and Infernax (Cloud, Console and PC). 

Ark: Ultimate Survivor Edition isn’t anything new. This was a comprehensive version of Ark, released midway through 2021, including ARK: Survival Evolved, along with the huge expansion packs of Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, and Genesis Parts 1 & 2. Today marks the day that all of this content becomes available on Game Pass for anyone with a subscription. That’s, what, several thousands of hours’ worth of content? Not bad if you haven’t grappled with Ark or its expansion packs before. 

Infernax is entirely new, arriving on Game Pass as a day-one launch – we’re expecting this to appear around 2pm UK time. The trailer (give that a hit below) gives a fairly strong indication of what Infernax is after: this is a Metroidvania in the original sense, as it’s clearly aiming to recapture the look and feel of an OG Castlevania game. We’re sensing a bit of Legend of Zelda 2 in there too. Just with demons. And enough body horror to make John Carpenter throw up in his mouth.

What makes Infernax interesting is that it’s attempting an open world, and there’s an emphasis on choice. You can choose to kill or redeem enemies, and those choices have ramifications. There are multiple endings on offer here, which is unusual for an action-platformer. There’s a thick vein of humour running through Infernax, too, so it might achieve a more unusual tone. 

Infernax and Ark: Ultimate Survivor Edition (the Xbox Store link for the latter is here) represent the end of announced new Game Pass games for February, but it’s traditional for Xbox to announce more around now. We will bring you that announcement as soon as we have it. Hopefully, we’re all getting Elden Ring as a Valentine’s surprise. You can hope. 

As things arrive, they also leave. On February 15th, we are losing Control (Cloud, Console, and PC), Code Vein (Cloud, Console, and PC), Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age (Console and PC), The Medium (Cloud, Console, and PC), Project Winter (Cloud, Console, and PC) and The Falconeer (Cloud, Console, and PC).

Admittedly, it’s not the best release day of Game Pass’s storied career so far, but there might be something you plan to play. If so, let us know by popping a comment below or do the same on social media.