June’s Games With Gold free games are now available to all Xbox Live Gold subscribers on Xbox One, Xbox One S, and Xbox One X. The games are also available to play on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, courtesy of backward compatibility. That said, the games are hardly worth downloading, or at least that’s what the overwhelmingly negative response from Xbox fans to the lineup suggests. To put the backlash in perspective, the announcement trailer for the lineup, which dropped six days ago, has only 2.6K likes to 3.8K dislikes. This isn’t the biggest difference, but considering it’s for free games, it’s pretty notable.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Unfortunately, while the lineup is shockingly bad, it’s not surprising. The Games With Gold lineup for Xbox Live Gold subscribers has been awful for all of 2021 and 2020 as well. Each month, the lineup is met with backlash, but now Xbox fans are starting to wonder if there’s more going on.
Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members, The King’s Bird and NEOGEO BATTLE COLISEUM are now available to download and play with June’s #GamesWithGold https://t.co/GlhA0oF9mE
— Larry Hryb 🏡🎮☁ (@majornelson) June 1, 2021
After months and months of abysmal offerings, Xbox fans are starting to wonder if Microsoft is trying to get everyone to move to Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the latter of which comes with Xbox Live Gold.
Not Fair…
The tactic of putting horrid games on Gold to dissuade people from caring about it and moving to Game Pass continues.
— Scott in Spain (ShotByAScot) (@scot_shot) June 1, 2021
Not really fair on anyone who already stumped up for it before you decided Gold was on its last legs…going from cool games to this offering is cheating them 😔
…But Working
Tempted to now get gamepass ultimate haha
— Let’s Talk Assassins Creed (@ACLetsTalk) June 1, 2021
Or Maybe It’s Not
I ran out of Xbox Live Gold subscription and … the truth is, this month I’m not worried about missing the Games with Gold
— Francisco Portillo (@JFPR22) June 1, 2021
Verdict
Obviously, this is a huge stretch. While it’s obvious Games With Gold is far down the list of priorities for Microsoft, it’s probably not to drive people towards Xbox Game Pass. It’s possible, but Occam’s razor suggests the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and that explanation is it’s simply not a priority for Microsoft or the resources it has to spend, and thus the lineups are suffering.
That said, while the Games With Gold offering for June is rubbish, they aren’t the only free games Xbox users can currently download.
