It’s coming home (to Xbox Game Pass): EA FC24 is among June’s new games

Microsoft and EA have very kindly combined their considerable might this month to bring EA FC24 to Xbox Game Pass. That means PC and Xbox players with a Game Pass subscription can download it for free and scratch that Euro 2024 itch.

FC 24 includes a recently added Euro 2024 tournament mode, with all the kits and squads present and correct, so you can play the matches you’ve just watched and either recreate the glory or rewrite the heartbreak.

That also means that anyone who’s been boring the life out of those around them by bleating about the 3-5-1-1 Southgate should be using can put it to the test online, and then watch that shrewd tactical system get taken apart by an 11-year-old doing step-overs all the way from the halfway line to the six yard box. 

It’s not all humiliating dismantlings at the hands of children, though. FC 24 is EA’s first football release since parting ways with the FIFA license, but all the familiar elements carry over from Ultimate Team to the player and manager career modes, resplendent in all their awkward cutscene glory. 

Sarkiness parked momentarily, it plays a great game of football and the player AI and animations overhaul this year feel like a step forwards.

Joining the well-timed arrival of that sports juggernaut throughout the rest of June is this raft of other treasures: Still Wakes the Deep, My Time at Sandrock, Keplerth, SteamWorld Dig 1&2, and Robin Hood - Sherwood Builders.

In particular, Still Wakes the Deep looks worth an install the very second it arrives. It’s the latest from Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture developer TheChineseRoom, set aboard an oil rig where Lovecraftian horrors await. Few studios can summon atmosphere like this one, and it’s nice not to be visiting yet another abandoned space station for a horror kick. 

Speaking of, The Callisto Protocol is one of the titles already added to Game Pass this month. Here’s the full list of new additions so far this month: Octopath Traveler 1&2, Depersonalization, Isonzo, and The Callisto Protocol.