December is almost upon us, and Microsoft is closing out 2018 with an eclectic mix of free games for Xbox Live Gold subscribers next month.
Xbox One owners will be able to download QUBE 2 all month long. The physics-based puzzle game was released in March by London-based indie studio Toxic Games. From Dec. 16 through Jan. 15, the free Xbox One title will be 2014’s Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), a puzzle-platformer based on traditional folklore from the Alaskan indigenous people known as the Iñupiat.
The Xbox 360 backward compatibility front is an interesting story in December. From Dec. 1-15, the free game will be 2011’s Dragon Age 2, the second entry in BioWare’s fantasy role-playing franchise. And in the second half of the month, subscribers will be able to grab Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.
Yes, you read that correctly — Mercenaries, which was developed by the now-defunct Pandemic Studios and published by the also defunct LucasArts in 2005 on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, is one of the two backward-compatible games next month. It appears to be the first time that Microsoft has offered an original Xbox game in its Games With Gold lineup. (Mercenaries has been downloadable from the Xbox Games Store via backward compatibility since April.)
In the meantime, Xbox Live Gold subscribers can still get some of November’s games, including 2017’s Battlefield 1.
