Delivering just over 10 games on average per month, it's only natural that Xbox Game Pass has quite the eclectic library of video games. Heading over to Xbox Game Pass today will present players with well over 100 individual titles, covering just about every corner of the gaming ecosphere imaginable. There are first-person shooters, action-adventure games, RPGs, strategy titles, Indie games, AAA games, and everything in between.
Xbox Game Pass' June 2023 line-up showed the perfect example of this diversity, with racing games like Need for Speed Unbound, horror games like Amnesia: The Bunker, and puzzle games like Stacking all coming to the service during the month. Though only six games have been confirmed for Xbox Game Pass' July 2023 line-up, it's looking like another solid month for the subscription service, albeit one that's catering to fans of one genre in particular.
Xbox Game Pass' July 2023 Games Are Great for City-Building Strategy Fans
Of the six games currently confirmed for Xbox Game Pass' July 2023 line-up, three of them are geared specifically toward fans of the strategy genre, and in particular, fans of city-builders. City-building strategy games often task players with creating and managing a city or facility, placing buildings or objects and managing various resources. The most popular example of a city-builder is the SimCity franchise, where players are tasked with creating a bustling metropolis from scratch, organizing road systems, plumbing routes, and other technical city management mechanics.
The first Xbox Game Pass July 2023 game to fit this niche is Arcade Paradise, which comes to the service on July 3. Originally released last August, Arcade Paradise sees players build and manage their very own retro arcade. Drenched in early 1990s flair, Arcade Paradise follows the same normal conventions of the city-builder strategy genre, tasking players with slowly building up their arcade from just one cabinet to a whole complex full of them. But the big hook of Arcade Paradise is that between all the management chores, players get to actually play the arcade games they purchase, sometimes even with local and online friends.
Next up is Techtonica, releasing on July 18 and arriving day one on Xbox Game Pass. Taking the gameplay of something like Deep Rock Galactic and giving it a management sim/city-builder overhaul, Techtonica tasks players with mining for resources and building their own factory, with the eventual goal of making enough machines to automate the whole process. The more machines the player has, the more tools and resources they have at their disposal, and the deeper they can excavate. And the deeper players excavate, the more resources they can find to build more machines, a classic loop for this genre.
The last city-builder strategy game arrives on July 20 for Xbox Game Pass and is titled The Wandering Village. Released back in September of last year, The Wandering Village is a bit more of a traditional city-building game, albeit one set on the back of a gigantic walking colossus. In The Wandering Village, players will not only need to complete all the usual tasks expected from a city-builder like creating enough housing and resource points for the population, but they'll also need to do this alongside building a relationship with the creature they reside on, ensuring that it doesn't see the villagers as parasites it needs to get rid of. With expansive research trees, multiple biomes, and tons of varying challenges to throw at the player to keep them on their toes, The Wandering Village is an excellent city-builder and strategy game, definitely worth checking out when it comes to Xbox Game Pass in July.