🔗 Share this article

After Microsoft's recent news of Xbox Game Pass membership updates, including a price increase for the Ultimate Tier to $30 monthly, many subscribers are looking for new ways to maximize their subscription. If you keeping their subscription or thinking about signing up, here are this week's picks.

This weekend's titles feature a beloved JRPG, a delightful indie adventure, and a superb puzzle game set to depart from the platform shortly.

Persona 4 Golden

One of the best ways to maximize value from your subscription is by immersing yourself in a extensive, engaging role-playing game — and Persona 4: The Golden Edition fits that description perfectly. Players take on the part of a teenager who has relocated to the quiet rural town of Inaba. By day, your goals involve making new friends, working part-time jobs, and managing studies. By night, you work to solve a disturbing string of murders by exploring unique dungeons themed around your friends' inner fears.

With a memorable cast of characters, tactical turn-based combat, flawless art design, and a storyline full of surprises, Persona 4: The Golden Edition is considered a masterpiece for good reason. It also features a highly engrossing cycle that will have you playing past bedtime, night after night.

Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato

While major titles like Ninja Gaiden 4 are a primary attraction for Game Pass, the subscription also showcases lesser-known indie gems. A great example of this is Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato. Drawing from Spirited Away, this enchanting independent adventure is a fantasy tale steeped in South American culture. You join Miho, who, after helping his grandma make soup, is pulled into a vibrant realm populated by potato-stealing frogs and various quirky animals.

Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato unfolds similar to an educational PC game from the 90s, as Miho tackles puzzles and aids the world's inhabitants by collecting an inventory of objects. Though it's a bit unpolished, Sopa is a sweet small experience that proudly celebrates its love for South America.

Cocoon: A Puzzle Adventure

Cocoon: A Puzzle Adventure is scheduled to exit the service on Oct. 15, giving you only a short time to experience it via subscription — and you definitely must. Developer the creators crafted one of the finest puzzle games of this generation in the 2023 release Cocoon. Its central gameplay element revolves around moving between worlds within additional worlds, and frequently you'll carry those worlds, in the shape of colorful spheres, alongside you.

While it doesn't have explicit instructions, everything about Cocoon: A Puzzle Adventure's puzzles is built in a highly intuitive way, though they will challenge you as well. 2023 was a massive year for video games, so it's no surprise if Cocoon was a bit overlooked by the masses. Let's rectify that now.