Last Updated on February 4, 2021 by Mark P.
Usually, there’s only four free games with an Xbox Live Gold subscription per month. However, this time Xbox is being awfully generous, with five games instead, one of which is a pretty major title. For all the Xbox gamers that have a Gold subscription, the five games they will get for free in February are Resident Evil, Dandara: Trial of Fears Edition, Lost Planet 2, Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, and Gears 5, by far the most noteworthy of the bunch. As always, the games remain freely accessible and playable so long as you have a valid Xbox Live Gold subscription, which, thankfully, Microsoft decided to keep at its usual price after considering an increase. They’re all playable on both the Xbox One and the new Series X/S.
As we said, Gears 5 is definitely the most notable game that’s free this month, being an entry in a massively popular Xbox title, and a very good one at that. As a sequel to the events of Gears 4 and featuring Kait Diaz in a leading role, the thrilling campaign finally gives players some more insight into the origins of the Locusts and how humanity played into the war waged against them. On top of the excellent campaign, it has a ton of cooperative and multiplayer content, definitely making it worth a look for gamers. That said, the other games available aren’t bad either!
Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb is a much older game, one of the rare original Xbox titles that come along with a Gold subscription every once in a while. Taking place in China in the ‘30s, it’s a classic action-adventure game that will ultimately take you to Istanbul as well. Naturally, you get Indy’s whip, and there’s even a hand-to-hand mechanic. The game is a little dated of course, but it’s nevertheless a fun experience.
Lost Planet 2 is a sequel to the first game from Capcom, and takes players away from the frozen wasteland that was the setting for the first game. It still has the same combination of third-person combat and exploration that makes the series great. Some fans even consider the game better than the third one.
Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition isn’t a game that everyone knows, but this pixel game will definitely appeal to fans of Metroidvania style games. A close comparison would be Celeste, another game with similar art style and game mechanics. Dandara is also a heavily narrative-focused game.
Finally, we have Resident Evil, which is nice since Resident Evil Village is only a few months away. The version we’re getting with Gold is a remaster of the original from a few years ago. Being a remaster of an old game, of course, it’s a bit smaller in scale than more recent titles, but it’s the focused horror genre and introduction to main characters like Jill and Chris that make it a worthwhile entry and time investment.
