The indie game Quarantine Zone: The Last Check, which is very soon to be released, will already be available on Xbox Game Pass for PC starting Monday. The Xbox Game Pass Twitter account was the source of this news, quickly making gamers happy but also a bit doubtful about the game’s supporting platform. This incorporation is another action in Microsoft’s strategy to increase the amount of titles that can be played through its subscription service.
Wow! Xbox Game Pass just threw out this news without giving any indication like, Monday? That’s more or less tomorrow from when they tweeted it. The tweet contained only the hype and a link, but the replies, oh my, the replies reveal the entire story. Every single person is saying “WAIT W MONEY SAVED” and “Out of nowhere!🤯” which is the atmosphere we all feel when Game Pass brings in a great-looking game that we didn’t have to pay for upfront. It’s that immediate serotonin boost, you know?
However, almost immediately the questions arise. And all of them are the same. ‘Is this on Xbox or only for the PC?’ WolfShadow99 asks. And that’s where the mood changes slightly because if you go with the talk in the replies, it seems that this is a drop only for the PC Game Pass. Someone with the username STATOBRADO_ even writes “only pc 💀” in a reply, which is just the right mix of disappointment and meme. Gamers on the console are seeing this smooth, kinda creepy-looking game about searching for signs of zombie outbreaks (kudos to Jahoot for that description) and being told “sorry, not for you.” Ouch.
And that led to a mini-rant from STATOBRADO_ who claimed “we console gamers pay double to get half.” Which is indeed, maybe a tad exaggerated, but the exasperation is felt. When the main Xbox account reveals something, it can be assumed that it is for the box the service is named after, right? But the PC Game Pass is such a big part of the ecosystem now, so these surprise drop-ins for PC are going to happen. Still, it leaves the console crew feeling a bit sidelined.
One more funny thread happened to be about the art. GalacticPilot flat-out asks, “Is that art ai?” then double-tweets to the Grok account to inquire if Grok thinks the art is AI-generated. And Grok, being an AI itself, more or less gave a review stating, “Based on style, consistency, and sources, this looks like the official digital artwork from the game’s developers, not AI-generated.” So even the AIs are now part of the discussion, which is a sentence I never imagined I would write. The art debate is everywhere these days but it is still surprising to see it popping up in a Game Pass announcement thread.
There were also some other random gems in the replies. Somebody is literally asking for Persona 3 Reload to come back to Game Pass, which is totally relatable. Another person is just saying that World of Warcraft should be on Xbox Game Pass, which, well, go for it. DiceWolf, a reviewer, pitched in to mention that they have been playing it and that it was an “honestly fun game” from the demo, which is a good sign! And aceattorney (great handle) shared the link to Steam for those who wanted more information, which was actually super helpful.
But the main point here is the divided response. For PC Game Pass subscribers, it is a delightful, unexpected victory. A new game to engage with on Monday, no extra fees. It is the service operating exactly as it was meant to be. For those on consoles, it is a reminder that the library is not always in harmony, and that can hurt a little, particularly when the game is this fascinating looking. It underscores the ongoing dilemma that Microsoft has to cope with when it comes to Game Pass, trying to please two different platforms with sometimes different libraries. The excitement is quite tangible, but so is the confusion, and this has become part of the Game Pass rollercoaster now. It merely indicates how much players are willing to put up with the service and how passionately they get disappointed when a great game is not offered on their favorite platform.
