Additionally, WWE 2K26 and Wildgate are free for all XBOX members to try with Free Play Days (XBOX Game Pass Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and Essential membership not required).

How to Start Playing

Scroll down and find and install the games on each of the individual game details page on XBOX.com. Clicking through will send you to the Microsoft Store, where you must be signed in to see the option to install with your XBOX Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and Essential membership. To download on console, click on the Subscriptions tab in the XBOX Store and navigate down to the Free Play Days collection on your XBOX One and XBOX Series X|S.

Keep the Fun Going

Purchase the game and other editions at a limited time discount and continue playing while keeping your Gamerscore and achievements earned during the event! Please note that discounts, percentages, and title availability may vary by title and region.

Free Play Days (Game Pass Membership Required)

Polterguys: Possession Party
Optimized for XBOX Series X|S / Smart Delivery
Experience supernatural multiplayer madness where 8 players use sneaky sabotage to get opponents caught by a raging monster! Play as mischievous ghosts who possesses every-day objects to gain special powers! Battle in spooky maps full of traps and utilize whacky powerups to sacrifice your friends! Polterguys is a spooky brawlfest where mischievous ghosts are being stalked by a deadly monster who wants to destroy them all!

Polterguys: Possession Party

Amplified Games Ltd

☆☆☆☆☆ 25

★★★★★

$4.99 $2.49

Get it now

Free Trial

Free Play Days For All

WWE 2K26
Optimized for XBOX Series X|S
Run the world’s greatest show your way with WWE 2K26 this weekend during XBOX Free Play Days! Step into CM Punk’s 2K Showcase, dominate with 400+ Superstars and Legends, and unleash chaos with all-new match types. Featuring the most stacked line-up in franchise history with 400+ playable WWE Superstars and Legends including The Rock, Triple H, John Cena, Rhea Ripley, and fan-favorites like Rey Fénix, Rusev, and Blake Monroe.

WWE 2K26 Standard Edition

2K

☆☆☆☆☆ 1479

★★★★★

$69.99 $34.99

Get it now

Wildgate
Optimized for XBOX Series X|S / XBOX Play Anywhere
Wildgate is a PvPvE multiplayer shooter with 3 different modes. In Artifact Brawl, be the first to snatch the Artifact and blast through the Wildgate or destroy the ships of every rival crew to be crowned the winner. Fleet Battle pits two massive teams of up to 12 players each against one another in relentless, action-packed combat. For a more relaxed looting expedition, salvage treasure and escape with the spoils before getting blown up in Treasure Hunt.

Wildgate

Dreamhaven, Inc.

☆☆☆☆☆ 346

★★★★★

$29.99 $7.49

Get it now

PC Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass

Free Trial

Don’t miss out on these exciting Free Play Days for XBOX Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and Essential members! Learn more about Free Play Days here and stay tuned to XBOX Wire to find out about future Free Play Days and all the latest XBOX gaming news. 

The post Free Play Days – WWE 2K26, Polterguys: Possession Party and Wildgate appeared first on XBOX Wire.

The trailer kicks us off with a wild look at both Horde Siege, the new 12-player, 3-squad PVE experience and the return of Versus, before The Coalition’s developers dive much deeper. 

Along the way, we get more information on Horde Siege, an evolution of the beloved original Horde mode. Set across the biggest multiplayer maps ever seen in the series, Horde Siege sets three squads of four out on their own individual missions across the same stage, resulting in wildly unpredictable battles. There’s a lot to learn here – from how classes work, to how optional objectives reward you and your squad – so make sure to watch for all the details. 

And that’s only half of it – we also learn about the return of Versus. The classic PVP experience has also evolved with the addition of E-Day’s new movement mechanics, allowing for the squad-based chaos you’re familiar with, and brand-new ways to make clutch plays to win the round for your side. We also found out about the four modes included in Versus, and even got a tease to what’s coming to the game after launch. 

After you’ve watched the trailer and deep dive, the best way to experience Multiplayer is to play it yourself. Drop into the Early Access Open Beta starting August 6 with pre-order on XBOX Series X|S or Steam, or with a Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass subscription.  

Gears of War: E-Day will be available on XBOX Series X|S, XBOX on PC, cloud, and is XBOX Play Anywhere. Play it day one with Game Pass Ultimate. Also available on Steam.

The post Gears of War: E-Day – Get an In-Depth Look at Multiplayer with New Trailer and Deep Dive appeared first on XBOX Wire.

The XBOX booth will be packed with new worlds to explore, developers to meet, and experiences that showcase what’s next for XBOX. Our booth will feature 25 upcoming games and 140 gaming stations, giving fans the opportunity to go hands-on before they launch. Be among the first to play and see games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Fable, Minecraft Dungeons II, Gears of War: E-Day, METRO 2039, STRANGER THAN HEAVEN, Alien: Isolation 2, and more.

As XBOX commemorates 25 years of play, gamescom 2026 is our way to celebrate the players and communities who made those many years possible. Attendees can revisit iconic moments, games, and innovations from every generation of XBOX through interactive experiences that honor the memories, friendships, and stories created along the way.

That celebration continues with the return of XBOX FanFest, bringing together members of our global community for exclusive experiences and unforgettable moments.

Can’t join in person? We’ll be streaming live on YouTube and Twitch, connecting fans around the world with developer interviews, special guests, gameplay reveals, new trailers, and more.

It’s all about the games

The biggest games of the year will be on XBOX, and many of them will be in our booth ready for you to dive into early.

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 takes center stage. Step into the franchise’s signature Core 6v6 Multiplayer on XBOX Series X, where every match showcases the fluid movement and best-in-class ballistics that define Modern Warfare 4. Whether you’re returning after the Early Access Beta or getting your first taste of the action, this is your chance to experience the next chapter of Modern Warfare Multiplayer firsthand.
• Gears of War: E-Day brings the first public playable hands-on experience with campaign to gamescom, giving players an early look at the brutal origins of the Locust War and the beginning of the brotherhood between Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago ahead of its October 6, 2026, release.
• Play Minecraft Dungeons II for the first time. Drop your pickaxe and grab a sword (and a friend) because the foes are tougher than ever – but the loot is worth the battle. Can you fight the crisis?
• For the first time ever, Fable will have a live demo theater presentation by Playground Games, showcasing live gameplay to the public, taking fans on a Hero’s journey that highlights its smooth and responsive combat. Seamlessly combine melee, ranged, and magical abilities to forge a combat style that feels uniquely your own.
• Play STRANGER THAN HEAVEN for the first time. Face down fate in the 50-year, action-adventure saga’s demo showcasing the innovative combat system that has you independently control the left and right sides of protagonist Makoto Daito across 3 of the 5 immersive Japanese cities & eras found in the full game.
• Get hands-on with METRO 2039 for the first time at gamescom ahead of its release in February 2027. Explore, scavenge, and survive the post-apocalyptic ruins of Moscow in the next landmark FPS from acclaimed storytellers 4A Games.
• Halo: Campaign Evolved lets attendees go hands-on with the faithful yet modernized remake of Halo: Combat Evolved’s legendary campaign, featuring updated visuals, refined gameplay, expanded combat options, and the iconic ringworld adventure that started it all.
• Between new Forza Horizon 6 features and partnership collaborations, there is always something new happening in Japan. Players can test their driving skills in the new Drift Attack feature and get a sneak peek at partnership collaborations dropping over the next few months.
• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 brings riveting content and announcements from the world of digital aviation, including the first public playable hands-on experience with the National Championship Air Races, giving players a chance to experience the fastest motorsport on earth.

There’s so much more to play including Alien Deathstorm, Alien: Isolation 2, Armatus, Bad Magpie, The Blood of Dawnwalker, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, Crowsworn, Genigods: Nezha, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, STAR WARS Zero Company, Terrible Lizards, Turok: Origins, and Valor Mortis.

Tune in from home

XBOX will bring the show to you with live broadcasts from the heart of the XBOX booth starting at 4pm CEST on Wednesday, August 26 and Thursday, August 27 featuring interviews, special guests, gameplay reveals, new trailers, and more.

Tune in on YouTube and Twitch. The show will be available in American Sign Language (ASL) and English Language Audio Descriptions (AD). Select content from the show will be available in additional languages.

XBOX Booth Details

You’ll be able to find us in Hall 7, booth A-0.61.  

• Thursday, August 27 – 10am to 8pm CEST
• Friday, August 28 – 10am to 8pm CEST
• Saturday, August 29 – 9am to 8 pm CEST
• Sunday, August 30 – 9am to 8pm CEST 

Our booth will be wheelchair accessible, with XBOX Adaptive Controllers available upon request and select demo stations equipped with adjustable-height desks and monitors. “Here to Help” staff will be on hand to help players with adaptive set ups and our Quiet room and sensory items will be available for players looking for a reduced sensory experience. Additionally, we will provide ASL, BSL and DGS interpreters and English- and German-language Audio Descriptions at our booth from 12-5pm Thursday through Sunday.

XBOX FanFest Sweepstakes

XBOX FanFest’s next stop is Cologne, Germany on Wednesday, August 26 from 8pm – 11pm CEST at the XBOX booth. Check our official social channels and the official XBOX FanFest website for news about how to enter the sweepstakes for your chance to win tickets.

The post XBOX @ gamescom 2026 appeared first on XBOX Wire.

In Forever Skies, that’s the world you’ll step into. It’s a first-person sci-fi survival crafting game set hundreds of years after an ecological catastrophe transformed our planet beyond recognition. Toxic clouds blanket Earth’s surface, so to move around, you’ll need to build, customize, and pilot a high-tech airship that will become your everything – your mobile base, workshop, and ultimate survival lifeline.

Built Together with Our Community

We’re incredibly excited to finally bring Forever Skies to the XBOX community after years of development. Since the early days of our PC Early Access, the game has been shaped by player feedback. Throughout development, we’ve worked closely with our community, listening to suggestions, refining core systems, and expanding the game with features inspired directly by our players.

Even after our 1.0 launch in April 2025, we knew we wanted to keep supporting the game. So, while preparing Forever Skies for XBOX, we continued listening to players and developing new content. That’s why our biggest update yet, The Final Echoes, launches exactly alongside the XBOX release. From day one, XBOX Series X|S players will experience the most complete and expanded version of the game.

And The Final Echoes introduces some major new features, including a new power management system for your airship and a reworked damage system that changes how you maintain and protect your flying base. We’ve also added more than 30 new side quests that uncover more of the world’s story, along with new enemies and combat encounters, new sprawling landmark locations, and greater environmental variety across our three biomes to make exploration even more rewarding. On top of that, we’ve introduced deep custom difficulty settings, allowing players to tailor the experience to their preferred playstyle. All of these additions—and more—are the result of another year of collaboration with our community, helping us create the best version of Forever Skies yet.

Now, since a lot of you will be taking flight with us for the first time, we wanted to take some time to six useful tips and tricks we’ve seen are worth highlighting as not everyone is aware of this when playing our game for the first time.

1. Find and Follow Side Quests

Side quests reward you with all kinds of useful things, from lore that reveals how life on Earth unfolded during humanity’s downfall to unique decorations for your airship and valuable resources. Most importantly, though, some side quests also reward you with powerful devices and technology that you might not find anywhere else. So, if you want to kit out your airship with the best tools and tech to help you thrive, keep an eye out for these side missions and do them. Don’t ignore them or just leave them till the end.

2. Deactivate Explored Location Beacons

Once you’re up in the skies exploring, you’ll notice that many locations are marked by flashing beacons at their highest point. After you’ve landed and scavenged a location, make it a habit to remove the battery powering the beacon on the location. This deactivates it, making it much easier to tell at a glance which locations you’ve already explored and stripped of resources.

3. Make Duplicate Devices Early

Can you get by with just one water filter, engine, or fabricator? Sure, but only just. If you really want to thrive, don’t be afraid to build duplicate devices early. Having multiple resource-producing machines running at once makes life much easier and helps your production ramp up much faster. This is especially true when playing in co-op, where there are more mouths to feed and more hands to keep busy. Your airship is meant to grow over time, so don’t be afraid to fill those empty rooms.

4. Capture Lighting to Take Advantage of the Surplus Status

One of the biggest overhauls added by our Final Echoes Update is our new electricity system. With it, you’ll now need to build up airships ability to generate power to meet your electricity consumption, and thus let you keep your devices on and functioning. If your power consumption exceeds your power generation by too much, your devices will start to take damage. But then there is also the flip side of this, known as Surplus Status. This isn’t just about building more and more generators. All that will do is keep you in Stable Status. Surplus Status requires you to upgrade your generators to be able to capture and harness lightning strikes encountered during violent storms. By overloading your grids with raw lighting energy, you’ll unlock significant efficiency perks for your airship. Crafting stations work faster, resource-producing systems become more productive, and even your airship gains additional flight speed with a built-in boost mode.

5. Be Smart in Combat

You’re a scientist sent to explore and study Earth, not an elite soldier. You’ll face plenty of threats from the planet’s evolved flora and fauna, but success comes from preparation rather than brute force. Look for openings, make good use of electrical mines, experiment with different ammo types, and don’t forget about stat boosters. Combat is all about finesse, so resist the urge to “Leeroy Jenkins” your way through every encounter.

6. Embrace Custom Difficulty (It Won’t Turn off Achievements)

Survival game haters will tell us they really don’t enjoy managing hunger and thirst, while survival game masochists will tell you there’s never enough starvation and dehydration for their liking. To try and finally satisfy everyone’s various demands for balance changes, we’ve implemented a new custom difficulty setting.

Now you can tweak how quickly your hunger, thirst, oxygen, and energy deplete, or even turn any of them off entirely if you want. You can remove the need for resources in order to build and craft. Choose what you lose when you die, whether it’s during normal gameplay or after blindly falling off your airship. You can also adjust combat by deciding how much health enemies have, how much damage they deal, and how frequently they spawn. Extra hint: if you’ve got a phobia of bugs, we’ve also got you covered. You can turn those giant mantis baddies into floating torso dudes in the accessibility settings. You can change any of these settings at any point in the game. And yes, as the title says, using custom difficulty will not disable your achievements. So set the game up exactly how you want to play and adjust as you go, enjoy!

Your Journey Begins Today

Forever Skies is available now on XBOX Series X|S and you can play solo or in coop with up to four people online. The game also supports XBOX Play Anywhere so your progress carries across XBOX Series X/S, Windows PC, and XBOX-supported gaming handhelds.

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see many of you in the skies alongside our amazing and dedicated community.

Forever Skies

Far From Home

☆☆☆☆☆ 16

★★★★★

$34.99

Get it now

Forever Skies is a first-person post-apocalyptic survival game. Play it solo or in coop and return to Earth, ravaged by an ecological disaster. Build, fly, upgrade and customize your high-tech airship. Craft tools, and scavenge resources to survive. Face dangers on the surface and hunt for viruses to cure a mysterious illness. Build and Control Your Airship Build, maintain and extensively customize a high-tech airship. This will be your home, workshop, laboratory and more while flying above the surface of a ruined Earth. Manage your airship and gather resources to improve and make it uniquely yours. Scavenge Ruined Skies Gather food, materials and resources from the ruins of civilization to survive. Use science to upgrade your tools, airship and technology to thrive in this hostile environment as you try fulfil your mission of finding viral pathogens to cure a mysterious illness ailing the last remaining humans stranded in orbit. Descend Below the Dust Descend below the toxic dust blanketing Earth to discover a strange new world, as the planet's surface has changed in our absence. Face evolved fauna and flora and hunt for viral pathogens, rare resources and valuable research to further your mission Single Player and Online Co-op Explore and fulfil your mission on ruined Earth in single player or play with friends using online co-op for up to 4 players.

The post Six Useful Tips to Survive and Thrive Above the Toxic Clouds in Forever Skies appeared first on XBOX Wire.

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More Ubisoft Content on the XBOX PC App

A broad selection of digital games with premium editions and/or add-on content have been added for XBOX on PC. Highlights include some of the biggest names in the Ubisoft catalogue – Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Star Wars Outlaws, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Skull and Bones, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown – alongside fan favorites spanning the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, The Crew and Watch Dogs franchises, and more.

XBOX Console-to-PC Offer

Players who own the digital XBOX console version of select games can now access the PC version through Ubisoft Connect at no additional cost. Check them out below:

• Assassin’s Creed Mirage
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
• Far Cry 6
• Immortals Fenyx Rising
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
• Riders Republic
• Skull and Bones
• The Crew 2
• The Crew Motorfest
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
• Watch Dogs Legion

Please update Ubisoft Connect to its newest version to ensure the titles are available in your library.

From today, customers that purchase a digital version of the listed titles will immediately get the XBOX console and XBOX on PC digital versions. For existing owners of an XBOX digital version of the listed titles, you will receive the PC version during a progressive rollout period until August 4. 

Still got questions? We’ve got you covered with the FAQ below.

Q: Does this work the other way around – if I own the PC version, do I get the console version free?

A: No, you can only claim a free PC version, not the other way around.  

Q: Does my Season Pass or add-on content also transfer?

A:  For most games, the edition and DLC content you own on Xbox will transfer to the PC version at no extra cost. The only exceptions are consumable items (such as in-game currency or one-time-use content), which may not carry over.

To see exactly what content you own on PC, open Ubisoft Connect PC, where your library will display the edition name tied to your account, and each game’s Properties page provides a full breakdown of your owned DLC and add-on content.

Q: Are in-game currencies or consumables included in the add-on content available on the XBOX PC App?

A: No, currencies and consumables are excluded from this offering. However, with select games that support cross progression, users will find all their content from the XBOX version on the PC version.

The post Play More Ubisoft Games on PC: New Content Now Available for XBOX on PC, Plus Free PC Redemption appeared first on XBOX Wire.