The Xbox Games with Gold July free games list is now official, but it’s not coming up rosy compared to the June roster. At least not for Xbox One owners, who have just gotten used to seeing the Games with Gold program.
Xbox 360 owners are doing just fine with Xbox Games with Gold July free games list, as they’ll see two titles for free. Xbox One owners, on the other hand, will get a single title on July 2 after seeing two free games in June.
That’s not exactly a good way to keep momentum for a Games with Gold program that’s just one month old on Microsoft’s next-gen platform.
To be fair, the free Games with Gold Xbox One game in July is a good one: “Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition.” Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition is a brawler/platformer whose protagonist is a masked Mexican wrestler looking to save the President’s daughter from the evil Carlos Calaca. It drips with classic ’80s themes, but with a vibrant next-gen world built around the Mexican land of the dead. The game replaces June’s Xbox One Games with Gold title Halo: Spartan Assault.
But therein lies the rub. There’s no Games with Gold free game to replace the other free game from June, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood. Max and Spartan Assault were the first two Xbox One games to be included in the Games with Gold program, and they were frankly a helluva start to the program.
But entering July, the Games with Gold program seems to have hit a bit of an impasse or reverted. Dropping from two free games to one, especially this early in the Xbox One Games with Gold program, is not good news.
Xbox 360 owners won’t see a drop-off at all in July, with two free games on tap as normal. First up is Gotham City Impostors, which will be available July 1-15. From July 16-31 Xbox 360 owners will get a unique platformer called BattleBlock Theater.
By comparison, Sony’s PS Plus free games list for July includes two titles each for PS3 and PS4.
Interestingly one of the PS Plus free games for July is Strider, which saw an Xbox discount via Microsoft’s Deals with Gold program two weeks ago. At the time we presumed that discount was a prelude to adding Strider to the Xbox Games with Gold July free games list. Instead, Strider’s come and gone on the Xbox platform, while Sony’s lined it up for PS Plus in July.
Could it be that Microsoft was planning to have Strider on the Xbox Games with Gold July free games list, but Sony’s PS Plus move knocked it off the Xbox One roster? Microsoft’s been calling for “parity” for months now regarding indie-developed games, but having an identical free-games promo wouldn’t exactly be the type of parity they had in mind. Bumping it thus may make sense.
Or, could Microsoft’s fledgling Xbox One Games with Gold program just be floundering a bit, even at this early juncture? What’s your take on just having one free Xbox One game in July, and what do you think could be the cause? Feel free to speculate below in the comments.
