Skip to main content

Xbox Games With Gold program showers subscribers with free games in December

Xbox - December Games with Gold
If you’re low on cash after buying gifts for your family this holiday season, you’ll still have plenty of great games to play on your Xbox One. Microsoft has revealed the free games Xbox Live Gold subscribers will receive next month through the Games With Gold program, and it looks like the year will end on a very good note.

For the entire month of December, Xbox One owners will be able to download Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition for free. The crime adventure, set in Hong Kong, uses a great hand-to-hand combat system and a voice cast that includes Emma Stone, and serves as a successor to the earlier True Crime series.

From December 16 until January 15, Xbox One owners will also be able to download Outlast. The horror game, which is receiving a sequel next year, was one of the bright spots during an otherwise rocky launch for the current generation of consoles, and comes close to perfecting the combat-free horror we’ve seen in games like Amnesia and Slender.

Xbox 360 owners will have access to two very well-received games, as well, and as with all Xbox 360 games included in the program, they are fully playable on Xbox One. Outland, one of the few Xbox games made by developer Housemarque, is available from December 1 until December 15. Its gorgeous art design and combat resemble the action-platformer Strider, which saw its latest entry made free through PlayStation Plus in 2014.

Lastly, Xbox Live Gold members will be able to snag Burnout: Paradise from December 16 until the end of 2016. The racing game originally released in 2008 to rave reviews, with many praising the evolution of the series as well as developer Criterion’s take on open-world design. Since then, Criterion has also developed the acclaimed Need for Speed: Most Wanted before canceling an action-racing project this year.

What do you think about December’s freebies? Is it enough to keep you paying for Xbox Live? Let us know in the comments!

Editors' Recommendations

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Age of Mythology: Retold will launch on PC and Xbox at the same time
Key art for Age of Mythology: Retold.

Microsoft and World's Edge gave us our first glimpse of its upcoming remaster of real-time strategy game Age of Mythology: Retold during Friday's New Year, New Age livestream. They also confirmed that it will launch on PC and Xbox later this year.

Age of Mythology: Retold's segment of the livestream began with Art Director Melinda Rose introducing the gameand  teasing that it will contain all-new 3D character models, animation, textures, and UI. Rose also highlighted the details of the character models for units like Medusa, Pegasus, and Cerberus. Each time players upgrade a unit, their design will change slightly. We then got a look at its key art, as well as confirmation that Age of Mythology: Retold will be released later this year. It will launch on both PC and Xbox at the same time and is the first World's Edge game to do so.

Read more
Xbox Game Pass gets one of 2021’s best games today
Iron Mask and Shionne attack in Tales of Arise.

The next batch of titles coming to Xbox Game Pass this month was just revealed. Leading the pack of games being added to the subscription service today is Tales of Arise, a critically acclaimed RPG from Bandai Namco Entertainment that Xbox previously leaked was coming to the service.

Tales of Arise was released in 2021. The latest entry in a long-running RPG series, it follows a slave and girl inflicted with a curse as they rise up against the kingdom of Rena. It sports real-time RPG combat, and is one of few games to score a five-star rating from Digital Trends.

Read more
Bringing Helldivers 2 to Xbox eventually isn’t such a bad idea
Four soldiers walk in a Helldivers 2 trailer.

It bugs Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer that Arrowhead Game Studios and Sony Interactive Entertainment's Helldivers 2 is not on Xbox. In a recent interview with Game File, Spencer stated that he's "not exactly sure who it helps in the industry by not being on Xbox," even though he understands that "there's a legacy in console gaming that we're going to benefit by shipping games and not putting them on other places."

That raises a good question: Should Helldivers 2 come to Xbox Series X/S? No plans for that are announced at this time. Although Spencer is likely saying Sony should do this because it would line up with Microsoft's current strategy, I don't think it would be such a bad idea once we're a ways out from this console exclusive's launch. At the very least, the wild success Helldivers 2 has seen on PC proves that PlayStation may benefit from eventually releasing more of its games on other platforms. The company already seems keenly aware of that, too.

Read more