Xbox Game Pass’ November lineup includes two of the best games of the year

Return to Monkey Island and Vampire Survivors will be available on Xbox Game Pass this month, and if you haven’t played them already, you really should

Xbox Game Pass is getting some great games in November, including the official Xbox releases of two of my favorite games of the year: Return to Monkey Island and Vampire Survivors.

Return to Monkey Island is the newest entry in the Monkey Island point-and-click adventure game series. It’s a delightful homage to the classic titles that adds some much-needed polish to smooth out some of the more annoying aspects of old-school LucasArts adventure games. It first launched on Steam and Nintendo Switch in September, and it will be available on Xbox Series X / S, Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, and PlayStation 5 on November 8th.

Return to Monkey Island is pretty chill, so if you’re looking for something that offers complete sensory overload, Vampire Survivors will do the trick with its barrage of bullets, weapons, enemies, and general sense of chaos. The game technically launched in early access last December, but over the course of this year, developer Poncle has added more features, characters, and levels to the game ahead of its 1.0 release in October. Vampire Survivors was originally only available for PC (in October, it had the most daily average users of any game on Steam Deck) and PC Game Pass, and it’s coming to Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, and Xbox Game Pass on November 10th.

This month, Xbox Game Pass is also getting titles like Football Manager 2023 (November 8th) and Obsidian’s old-timey Pentiment (November 15th). You can read the full list on Xbox Wire.

These are just new games coming to Xbox Game Pass; subscribers will also be able to access Halo Infinite’s major Winter Update, adding network campaign co-op and Forge mode (available November 8th), and Microsoft Flight Simulator’s 40th Anniversary Editionthat includes helicopters and gliders (available November 11th). And this is all assuming you aren’t still playing the huge JRPG Persona 5 Royal, which hit Game Pass in October.