Every month, Microsoft continues to add great new titles to its already excellent Xbox Game Pass lineup, and soon, a great deal more will be joining the subscription service’s library. Taking to Twitter via the official Game Pass handle, Microsoft confirmed the looming new additions to the catalog.

We’ve already reported on two of these in recent days- Void Bastards is out on May 29, while Outer Wilds launches the day after that, and both will be joining the Game Pass catalog at launch. The incredible shooter Superhot joins the lineup on June 6, while Stoic Studio’s Banner Saga games will be doing so as well, with The Banner Saga going live tomorrow, May 23, and The Banner Saga 2 following suit on June 6.

Full Metal Furies will also be among the games coming to Game Pass on June 6, while a week before that, Dead by Daylight will be going live, on May 30. Finally there’s Metal Gear Survive, the Metal Gear game we never wanted- but hey, if it you want to give it a try for free, now’s your chance to do so. It joins Game Pass on May 23, which is tomorrow.

So many games on the way we could barely fit them all in this picture pic.twitter.com/Qotz02HTpy

— Xbox Game Pass (@XboxGamePass) May 22, 2019

https://twitter.com/XboxGamePass/status/1131181890344370176

Knights of Pen and Paper 2 (iOS, Android)

Role-playing as a group of D&D players and their dungeon master as they role-play their own adventure? That’s Knights of Pen and Paper for you. The sequel, developed by a different studio, offers less grinding and an overall easier experience to battle through. With features like a Mega-Dungeon, an all-new campaign and new character classes, Knights of Pen and Paper 2 is worth checking out even with the in-app purchases.

Stoic Games confirmed that they would be putting out The Banner Saga series out on the Nintendo Switch in its entirety ahead of the launch of The Banner Saga 3– so that Switch owners would be caught up on the story, and also have the ability to have their saves, which carry across games, import into the third game when it launches.

The first game was made available on the Switch in Mid-May; the second one isn’t too far behind. By which I mean it’s out. Now. At this moment. Yes, The Banner Saga 2 launches on the Nintendo Switch today, on June 7. Surprise! Another surprise- owners of the original game get $5 off on the new one!

Collectively, this should give players enough time to get through the first two games going into The Banner Saga 3 (which launches on all platforms simultaneously)- so good on Stoic for living up to their word here. The Banner Saga 3 launches on July 24 for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

It looks like owners of the original @BannerSaga on Switch get a nice little price break on Banner Saga 2. #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/6ZA22tfLDH

— Sean Sean (@DignifiedBeard) June 7, 2018

Stoic will be concluding its epic The Banner Saga trilogy with the third game in July. However, before then, it’ll give Nintendo Switch users a chance to experience The Banner Saga 2. The developer announced the second game’s release on June 7th for the Switch along with some new screenshots of the same.

Steve Escalante, General Manager of the game’s publisher Versus Evil stated that, “We are proud to launch Banner Saga 2 on Nintendo Switch, hot on the heels of the launch of the first game, The Banner Saga last month. There has never been a better time to get into this awarding winning series.

“Strategy and RPG Nintendo Switch fans will get the opportunity to play through the entire saga, from start to finish, this Summer when the third and final chapter Banner Saga 3 releases. Playing this game on the Nintendo Switch is truly a joy, allowing you to play whenever and wherever you can.”

Considering The Banner Saga 3 is out on July 26th for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PC and PS4, now is the perfect time to experience the first two games before the penultimate finale. The Banner Saga 2 plays much like the first game in that choices made will determine the survival of your clan. Battles are won by tactics and how resources are allocated is important.

Furthermore, any choices made in the first game will carry over to the second game and similarly with the third release. With how many accolades both titles have received, it will be interesting to see if The Banner Saga 3 can end the series on its highest note.

Anyone who’s been following my posts on here for the last few years knows that I absolutely love The Banner Saga; they’re arguably among my favourite indie games ever. Given that they’re really high profile indie games, and that indie titles have been doing exceptionally well on Nintendo’s Switch, it was only a matter of time before they made the jump to Nintendo’s hybrid.

That happened today- Nintendo announced ion their Spring Nindies Showcase that The Banner Saga games would be coming over to the Switch. The Banner Saga 3 is set to launch on the Switch this Summer, which actually makes the Switch the first console the game has been explicitly confirmed for. The first two games are set to come “soon” as well, though we have no release windows. Nintendo was quick to point out that your decisions will carry over across games, which seems to suggest they might be releasing before the third game is out.

The Banner Saga is an excellent blend of a strategy RPG, a visual novel, and an adventure game; they’re the kinds of games that are perfect for portability, so having the full series on the Switch is a great coup for Nintendo. Check out the announcement trailer for The Banner Saga 3 below.

The original Banner Saga was an incredible success, a critical darling that went on to become an indie game success story. In contrast, the launch for The Banner Saga 2 came and went, without so much as a whisper. This is puzzling, because The Banner Saga 2 is a great game- the one criticism that can be leveled at it is that it lacks the freshness of its predecessor, but isn’t that the case for most sequels that go on to pull in massive numbers anyway?

So why did The Banner Saga 2 underperform? John Watson, co-founder of developer Stoic, believes it is because the developers failed to keep the community engaged and in the loop with the development of the sequel, unlike what they managed with the first game.

“I think we dropped the ball there,” Watson admitted to GamesIndustry.biz. “We thought that audience would still just be there. We really neglected our community during the development of Banner Saga 2, because we were focusing on our work. I think that was a mistake. We all agree that was a mistake.”

Neglecting the community isn’t the only poor decision by Stoic- according to Watson, the release window chosen for the game also went on to work against them.

“That is a factor,” Watson said. “With The Banner Saga we launched against 70 games that month. With The Banner Saga 2 it was over 400, so that is a factor. You are fighting more for attention, and it’s remarkable how many people I meet say, ‘oh, Banner Saga 2 is out?’ They just don’t know, and we spent a lot of money marketing it. We tried to make it known.”

Hopefully, The Banner Saga 2 continues to have a long tail that ensures a steady stream of sales in the coming months and years. And hopefully, Stoic learn from their mistakes for The Banner Saga 3.

Xbox One and Xbox 360 players – at least those who subscribe to Xbox Live Gold – are in for quite the line-up in this month’s Free Games With Gold.

Xbox One players receive The Banner Saga 2, free from July 1st to 31st, and Tumblestones from July 16th to August 15th. The Banner Saga 2 is obviously the best possible thing here since it’s a worthy follow-up to the tactical strategy original and delivers even better action than before.

As for Xbox 360 players, they receive Rainbow Six Vegas 2 from July 1st to 15th and Tron Evolution from July 16th to 31st. Despite the latter being somewhat decent, you’ll obviously want to check out Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for its campaign and co-op modes.

What are your thoughts on this month’s Games With Gold? Which games are you most hyped about? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information on other free games in the coming month.

Xbox One owners will get to play the excellent Banner Saga 2 for free this month, since the title is part of this month’s great yet again Games with Gold lineup, but PS4 owners get to have their own little victory where this game is concerned too- the game will be launching on PS4 early. How early? Why, next week early.

That’s not all, either- it looks like Stoic and Sony are really compensating for not having the game be free on PS4, because the PS4 version will also feature an exclusive ability bonus: a unique level 10+ sword that gives a +3 for all talent ranks, and 20% double strength damage.

“We originally planned to launch later in the month,” Versus Evil’s community director Lance James said on the PlayStation Blog (Versus Evil are porting the game to consoles). “However, because of the combined effort of our friends at Sony and the hard work by the team at Shiny Shoe, we are able to bring this to you much sooner.

“Stoic wanted people to kick start their summer off right and jumped at the chance to get the second game in PlayStation 4 owners’ hands – just three months after the launch on PC and Mac, which is so much quicker than the previous wait you guys had for Banner Saga 1!”

It really is far quicker, there is no doubt about that. The game is great, too, so PS4 owners are in for a treat. Now, if we could just get the promised Vita port of the original game…

The Banner Saga 2, the sequel to the 2014 hit game which used a gorgeous artstyle to tell an affecting story in a unique roleplaying game that blended point and click adventure titles with turn based strategy gameplay, will be hitting Xbox One and PS4 this July.

If you are new to the series, which you may be, considering the original game’s niche hit status, then you may want to watch the new trailer below- it recaps everything that happened in the original Banner Saga pretty well, while also appropriately setting the stage for the events of the second game.

That second game was really well received by GamingBolt- we felt that it was a bigger and better game than its predecessor in every way, albeit it did fail to bring anything new to the table like the original had. If you would rather play The Banner Saga 2 right now, then you can buy it from Steam on PC. Everyone else- wait up till July.

The Banner Saga 2 begins with Chapter 8, more or less right where the original game ended, and the stakes are higher than ever before. The game tells a story about a world that is swiftly coming to an end, and there is always an inevitability around that fact- that story doesn’t hinge around anyone trying to stop it from happening, but rather on everyone trying to survive it. It’s a bleak setting that rarely lets up, and the game portrays the powerlessness and the helplessness of its wonderful cast of characters very well.

"It’s a bleak setting that rarely lets up, and the game portrays the powerlessness and the helplessness of its wonderful cast of characters very well."

Like the original game, The Banner Saga 2 places a premium on player choice and agency. The game has the option to import save files from the first game, and the choices you made earlier come into play right from the get go, with events at the end of the first game dictating something as simple as who the main protagonist of the game is going to be- Rook, the perennially depressed hunter-chieftain, or his daughter, Alette. And practically everything you do has an effect on how the game progresses and how the story twists and turns- assign too many people in your caravan to collecting food? You may get a comfortable buffer of resources, but you may leave yourself vulnerable to attacks if you commit too many people to it. Have too many characters on the field of battle, and not only do you run the risk of losing some of your strongest, best characters in battle, but you may find yourself without food to feed your people.

And trust me, you’re gonna want to feed your people, because it directly affects their morale, and morale is very important when you get down to the ugly business of battle. A squad of warriors high on morale can be deadly if used properly, whereas a squad low on morale can crumble within a matter of seconds.

Even on the field of battle your choices have an interesting and very, very apparent ripple effect. Losing battles is always a possibility, and can bring with it severe casualties, both permanent and temporary. Perma-death, a hallmark of the genre, is naturally here in full force, but The Banner Saga 2 gives you several other considerations to keep in mind as well. Losing can lead to characters being injured and hence unfit to participate in battles or other activities for a significant period of time, and morale ties into this directly as well- a defeated squad is a demotivated squad and probably wont pull its weight when it comes down to it.

"Even on the field of battle your choices have an interesting and very, very apparent ripple effect."

And thankfully, the battle system has received some significant upgrades here- one of the most significant being the addition of the new Horsemen class. Their addition may not have had any significant effect on the narrative, but in battle, they can give you or your enemies serious strategic advantages. Horsemen can take an additional turn for movement after attacking, and their charge abilities can be deadly and extremely effective if used properly.

Be careful though- haphazardly going on the offensive in battles can spell a quick death for your units. Every unit has two stats, when you get down to the basics- armour and health, which are both directly proportional to how much a unit can defend and how much it can attack. While going all out and attacking a unit’s health can seem like an attractive strategy for those of us with short fuses, it usually turns out that chipping away at enemies’ armour and then dealing deadly attacks later on in battles can be extremely effective.

What’s more, positioning is paramount in The Banner Saga 2. On the offensive side, several attacks (such as the Horsemen’s charge abilities) can damage any and all units in their vicinity, for example, both friend and foe. On the defensive side, you can use some of your larger tank-like Varl units to block the paths of your enemies and essentially serve as shields for some of your physically weaker units, like your archers. The new Poet class, in fact, is almost too reliant on positioning- if the Poet sees one of your units defeat an enemy unit, he can sing songs about it to increase your squad’s morale, but for that he has to be able to physically see the victory. If his line of vision is being blocked, he won’t be able to write any victory songs. The addition of destructible environments also adds a sense of strategy to an already nuanced and layered battle system.

"The way The Banner Saga 2’s mechanics all manage to bleed into and affect each other, across gameplay and story, is quite an achievement."

The fact that the game shakes things up in terms of battle objectives- “kill all enemies” is not the extent of it anymore- helps with that a great deal and manages to successfully tackle a great many issues with the first game’s combat, but it has to be mentioned though that by the end of the game- which was around 10-12 hours into the story for me- the battle system may start feeling a bit repetitive. Also, while the game is usually fair with how challenging it is, in some of the later battles, it starts creating situations and circumstances that feel like they’ve just been put there to make the battle artificially harder, and it stands out so much because of how consistent the game is up until that point in this regard.

The way The Banner Saga 2’s mechanics all manage to bleed into and affect each other, across gameplay and story, is quite an achievement. The game usually manages to sustain a wonderful presentation style, with a beautiful 1960’s Disney animation style and a moving soundtrack composed by Austin Wintory. It is, however, extremely important to note that you’re probably going to get out a lot more from The Banner Saga 2 if you’ve already played the original. The game is a direct sequel in every sense of the word, and it doesn’t shy away from the fact. Of course, it tries to familiarise new players with its world and its inhabitants with short videos and descriptions, but chances are that you’ll probably enjoy the experience a lot more if you’ve already played the original.

It’s safe to say, then, that The Banner Saga 2 is one hell of an experience. It can be faulted for maybe playing it too safe and mostly sticking to what the original already did so well, but regardless, it’s an enjoyable experience boasting of a bleak, harrowing tale, a great cast of characters and strategically enjoyable battles. It takes a good, hard look at the strengths of the 2014 title and builds on them in the best ways possible. The second act of this planned trilogy is a strong one, and sets up the conclusion very well.

This game was reviewed on the PC.