Microsoft doesn’t seem to want to wait for Summer Game Fest or their own Xbox & Bethesda Games Show to start announcing their plans for the future as they’ve just confirmed they are creating an Xbox Game Pass demo program that will feature upcoming games in an attempt to rival that of PS Plus Premium on PS5 and PS4.
Xbox Game Pass members can try out upcoming titles
The demo program is currently codenamed Project Moorcroft and will allow Xbox Game Pass members to try out curated demos of upcoming, unreleased games. In contrast, the current PS Plus Premium trials only include recently released PS5 and PS4 games with no indication that Sony intends to add demos from upcoming games.
The Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One demos will initially focus on games from “independent developers from around the world”. Those who decide to create demos for the program will be compensated, although Microsoft didn’t elaborate on this, and will be able to “see how their demos perform”. However, you’ll need to curtail your excitement for now as the demos aren’t due to start rolling out for Xbox Game Pass members until sometime next year.
Microsoft also announced improvements to cloud gaming for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. Their intention has always been for players to be able to play games they have purchased outside of the Xbox Game Pass library on the cloud. Later this year, Microsoft will be trialing this by making select games available. Hopefully, if the program is successful, more games will be added to the available pool.
In other news, the first DLC expansion for Forza Horizon 5 has seemingly leaked on Steam and will be taking players into the world of Hot Wheels once again. Elsewhere, Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 will be released later this year although this does not mean the end of the existing Call of Duty: Warzone.
