New to Xbox Game Pass – January 2022 Wave 2

It goes without saying that a lot happened on Tuesday. A new trailer was released for The Cuphead Show! that’s coming to Netflix. The price and release dates for the Nintendo Switch cloud versions of the Kingdom Hearts series were revealed. Microsoft turned the gaming industry on its head and made us all question what constitutes a monopoly by purchasing Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. I’ll reiterate that it was quite an eventful Tuesday.

Something that may have been a little overlooked however is that in addition to that last bit of Microsoft-related news, they also announced the next wave of titles heading to Xbox Game Pass. It had technically been leaked the day prior, but the official announcement came on January 18th at 9:00 am. As I decided to start covering their offerings with the first wave of 2022 a couple of weeks back, I can’t let this news stay buried for those that might have missed it.

Available immediately is Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition and Nobody Saves the World. The former is an enhanced version of the first game in the popular visual-novel murder mystery series that has blossomed into a multimedia franchise over the last decade. This enhanced version was released on the Nintendo Switch last year and was then released out of nowhere for Xbox One and Game Pass. If you’ve never played the game before, which is possible as this is the first time it’s come to an Xbox console, this is the perfect chance.

The latter title, Nobody Saves the World, is a brand-new action RPG from DrinkBox Studios that released day one on Xbox Game Pass. Chances are high you might know them as the developers of the popular Guacamelee! series of games, whose protagonist was represented in the crossover Dead Cells update. Their latest game places you in control as Nobody, a character who can transform into various forms and mix abilities. Two people can play together with online co-op as well.

A large portion of the upcoming games are set to launch on January 20th. One of the big headliners here is Death’s Door, which was released last year. The 3D-isometric title takes plenty of influence from Dark Souls, while also interjecting plenty of humor and some cute designs here and there. To hear more about the little crow protagonist (who’s also a reaper), you can read Keiran’s review here.

Another large headliner is the Hitman Trilogy, which I briefly mentioned during my overview of the year 2 roadmap for Hitman 3. Not only is the third entry in this soft-reboot (of sorts) trilogy for the series finally available outside of the Epic Games Store for PC, but it’s bringing the previous two games with it to Xbox Game Pass. As someone who’s clocked hundreds of hours in the series, I can happily vouch that this is an excellent deal. There’s nothing else that perfectly nails such puzzle, sandbox, stealth, and action elements as the Hitman series.

Keeping the day one train going, we also have the highly anticipated Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction. Based on the Outbreak limited event mode in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, the game includes many operators from the latter and lets players work together against an alien threat. For those that enjoyed the gameplay of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege but aren’t into PvP, this is certainly worth taking a look at. The roadmap for the future of the game looks promising as well.

If you’ve never played that particularly popular PvP game though, you’ll have an easy way to do it now since Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege: Deluxe Edition is also being added to Xbox Game Pass. It’s been continuously updated with content ever since it launched in 2015 and is currently on its 23rd season. This version of the game includes the 16 additional operators that were added over the first two years.

To balance out a bit more of these grim titles, there’s the absolutely adorable and also highly anticipated Pupperazzi. You take pictures of dogs in a world inhabited by cute and derpy dogs. There are dogs riding scooters, swinging on swings, skateboarding at parks, and potentially even on the moon. You can also (of course) pet them and dress them up in outfits, glasses, hats, etc. It’s certainly the most wholesome of the games that have been added.

Rounding out the titles available on January 20th is Windjammers 2, the sequel to the original Windjammers that was available in arcades and Neo Geo systems in 1994. It plays a bit like Pong in that two players are trying to hit an object back and forth at each other. Only that object is a frisbee and the overall intensity of the game is more akin to ice hockey. The original was an incredibly fun game and this looks to be an exciting modern follow-up.

A final surprising addition that will be added on January 27th is Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master. This is a new release in the series and is available (for the first time) exclusively for Xbox consoles and Microsoft Windows. While these rhythm games are always the most fun if you can play them at an arcade that features the game and the large drums, there are USB peripherals from previous entries that will hopefully work. Even if they don’t, it’s still a fun game to play. The only previous way to partially play the series on these platforms was through a Yakuza 5 minigame.

Just like previous months, we also have a selection of titles leaving. These games include Cyber Shadow, Nowhere Prophet, Prison Architect, and Xeno Crisis. The final chance to play these games is January 31st.