Xbox Live Games With Gold for December 2015 and January 2016; Games in Demand for Backwards Compatibility

By Mark Rollins
Games with Gold January.
Games with Gold availability for January 2016. Major Nelson

Xbox Live Games with Gold subscribers always love to see what free games will be available for the month, and the list of what will be available for January 2016 just became available.  There is also time to play what is available for December 2015, as well as some rumors about what games will gain their backwards compatibility. 

Major Nelson has recently posted the new free games for the month of January 2016, with about ten days left in the month of December. 

The first game available for the Xbox One is Killer Instinct: Season 1 Ultra Edition, available from January 1-31.  If you are not familiar with Killer Instinct, it is a video game that goes all the way back over twenty years ago to 1994, and this fighting video game was recently rebooted with some elements of the original Killer Instinct and its sequel, Killer Instinct 2 involved.  As unusual as it is for a fighting game to have a "season", but here are the characters that can be played:  Jago, Sabrewulf, Glacius, Thunder, Sadira, Orchid, Spinal, Fulgore, and Shadow Jago. 

Also available for the Xbox One is Zheros, a pretty new game that is a 3D beat'em up, available from January 15 to February 15.  According to the game's website, The players can be Mike or Captain Dorian, going to distant galaxies in order "defend the universe from the evil Dr. Vendetta and his twisted plan to mutate every living creature in his trusted minions". 

Available for the Xbox 360 from January 1-15 is DiRT Showdown, which the Steam Store describes as "race, crash, and hoon your way through a world tour of motorized mayhem".  It looks like it is made by the same people who made DiRT Rally. 

Also available for the Xbox 360 is Deus Ex Human Revolution, from January 16 to January 31st.  This is the third game in the Deus Ex series, set in 2027, during a time when multinational corporations are more powerful than the government in this cyberpunk action RPG.  We at the Gospel Herald actually predicted that one of the Deus Ex games would be available for free sometime in January, as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will be coming out on August 23rd. 

January 2015 is more than ten days away at this writing, so here are the games available for the month of December 2015: 

Available all month for the Xbox One is Thief, a reboot of a 1998 game, and the player controls Garrett in a steampunk Victorian world as the stealth game focuses on stealing from the rich.  This game is available from December 15th to January 15th.

Time is running out for another game available for the Xbox One from December 1st to the 31st is The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, an action role-playing game that is the first in a series of games about the son of the famous vampire hunter taking out a lot of supernatural enemies in a steampunk world. 

From December 16-31, Xbox 360 users can enjoy two games.  One of them is Sacred 3, which is described on the Steam Store as "an arcade Hack 'n' Slash game for up to 4 players".  The other game is Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. 

In addition to all these free games, Gotta Be Mobile reports that Microsoft plans to add new games to the more than 100 titles are available through the Xbox One backwards compatibility program on a monthly basis.  Some of the titles that are in demand include Alan Wake, LA Noire, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mass Effect 3, Halo 3: ODST, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and Red Dead Redemption. 

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