Five Xbox Games Worth Playing This October

October shapes up as a crucial month for Xbox, with two major first-party releases and several notable Game Pass additions arriving as the platform navigates a challenging year marked by layoffs and studio departures. The month's slate of games will be vital in maintaining player interest as Microsoft refocuses its gaming strategy around core franchises.

Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6 as one of the month's headline releases. The prequel takes the third-person shooter franchise back to its origins, depicting how Emergence Day unfolded within the Gears timeline. Despite the historical setting, the game maintains the series' signature blend of visceral action and over-the-top combat, complete with a Horde mode for cooperative play. For players seeking a single new Xbox release this month, E-Day represents the most substantial offering.

Also arriving October 6 is Star Wars: Galactic Racer, a racing title that applies Burnout's crash-focused gameplay to the Star Wars universe. The game emphasizes high-speed races punctuated by slow-motion collision sequences, while featuring the franchise's distinctive junky vehicles. Its roguelike-inspired single-player campaign introduces an innovative approach to solo racing content that could influence how the genre handles offline progression.

Echo Weaver, a Metroidvania puzzle-adventure, releases October 8 on Xbox Game Pass. The game's central mechanic involves manipulating time to navigate its 2D world, with players possessing all necessary abilities from the start but needing to discover how to apply them. This structure creates a unique puzzle-driven progression system that Xbox has been promoting as a potential breakout indie title.

Valor Mortis arrives October 13, also launching day one on Game Pass. Developed by the team behind Ghostrunner, this first-person Soulslike casts players as a resurrected Napoleonic soldier fighting a supernatural plague across a corrupted 19th-century Europe. The combination of historical setting and horror elements, paired with the developer's track record, positions it as a challenging option for players seeking demanding combat.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 closes the month on October 23. The latest entry in Activision's shooter franchise follows 2023's Modern Warfare 3 with a campaign centered on a South Korean soldier defending against invasion. The game's reintroduction of DMZ, an extraction shooter mode last featured in Modern Warfare 2, marks a significant addition aimed at revitalizing the franchise following several years of mixed releases.