Xbox Game Pass for January 2026 is looking rather hot — with Resident Evil Village as the headline act

Xbox Game Pass is trucking along, despite last year's drama.

In case you missed it, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate grabbed a hefty 50% price hike a few months ago, leading to widespread condemnation. In compensation, Microsoft included Fortnite Crew and 1440p, boosted bit-rate Xbox Cloud Gaming to the highest tier, but people weren't pleased, as you can imagine.

2026 will be the first full year that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate sports the boosted price rate. It'll be interesting to watch how the price hike shakes out. Will it lead to boosted revenue, or just a gradual wave of expiring subscriptions? Will the boosted revenue be used to add more high-quality games, or simply go to pad Xbox's reportedly ambitious profit margins? Time will tell. At least for now, we have some juicy new games to look forward to in January.

Today on Xbox Wire, Microsoft revealed the latest round of Xbox Game Pass titles for January, and they include some solid titles. The headline act is arguably Resident Evil Village, which was quite easily among the best games of its launch year. Wrapping up Ethan Winters' story, Resident Evil Village plays almost like a homage to the variety of gameplay styles Resident Evil has espoused over the years, with deep survival horror segments, more action-oriented areas, complete with an iconic cast of mad mutants that stalk your every turn. Here's the run down on the games heading to the program, and when.

Resident Evil Village is hitting Xbox PC, Game Pass Premium, and Ultimate, which begs the question — will it gain Xbox Play Anywhere status? One weird thing about the Resident Evil franchise as of writing is the inconsistency by which Capcom has supported Xbox Play Anywhere. Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 2 both support Xbox Play anywhere, making them decent games to play on your Xbox Ally. However, Resident Evil Village currently does not support Play Anywhere. There's no word on whether or not the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem will support it either.

It's fun to see other Xbox Play Anywhere additions here, including Atomfall and Little Nightmares. Both titles run incredibly well on the Xbox Ally, as well as the Xbox Series S. Atomfall is a STALKER-like set in an alternative British history examining the real-world, little-known UK nuclear Windscale disaster. Little Nightmares is a horror-twinged puzzle-platformer, similar in vein to games like Limbo or Inside. I can't recommend that one enough.

In any case, let us know what upcoming Xbox Game Pass additions you find compelling. You can grab Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from Amazon for the old price of $20 still to this day, I suppose while stocks of the cards last.

Microsoft has a big Xbox Developer Direct show coming in January, which is widely expected to offer glimpses at upcoming games like Fable, Gears of War: E-Day, Forza Horizon 6, and possibly Halo Campaign Evolved. Microsoft has dozens of games in development, including State of Decay 3, Blade, Clockwork Revolution, and many more. Microsoft has also cancelled many games, including Perfect Dark, Everwild, and Contraband.

Microsoft's Xbox brand has been fraught with doubt over the past year, but hopefully 2026 will be a tad more positive.

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