Xbox Game Pass surprise drops Danganronpa Anniversary Edition and shows Taiko no Tatsujin hitting PC

Amidst all of yesterday’s acquisition mayhem, Xbox announced its upcoming games coming to Xbox and PC Game Pass for the rest of January and, oh boy, it might be one of my favourite lineups to date.

There are a few games here that we already knew about: IO Interactive’s Hitman trilogy is coming in a neat little bundle, Rainbow Six Extraction and Rainbow Six Siege get the PC Game Pass Treatment, stylish sports fighter Windjammers 2 is getting a day one release along with canine photography game Pupperazzi. All five of those are landing on January 20, which appears to be one of the biggest days in videogames right now.

Some games are pleasant surprises, though. One of my all-time favourite visual novels Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc’s Anniversary Edition shadow dropped on January 18. The first game in the Battle Royale/Ace Attorney-style trilogy was given improved controls and new gallery features for its 10th anniversary in 2020, which is the version that’s finally hit PC. Goofy dungeon-crawler Nobody Saves the World dropped alongside it, which Jon Bailes called “highly entertaining” in his review.

Top-down action adventure Death’s Door is also set to hit Game Pass on January 20. Luke Winkie gave it a score of 83 in his review, saying the game “feels like a microscopic epic. It’s as if a grand entry to an overarching canon—filled with quirks, humor, and wondrous attention to detail—was miraculously miniaturized to fit into a fortnight’s worth of lunch breaks.”

Perhaps the biggest surprise and the one I’m most excited about is drumming rhythm game Taiko no Tatsujin. It’s the first Taiko game to hit PC—if you don’t count its appearance in Yakuza 5 and the numerous ways to emulate it—and includes over 70 songs plus online ranked matches. It’s a fantastically simple rhythm game on the surface, but harder beatmaps will have your fingers trembling from the insane note patterns. Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master is coming to PC Game Pass on January 27.

As always, a few games are leaving at the end of the month: Cyber Shadow, Nowhere Prophet, Prison Architect and Xeno Crisis will all be departing PC Game Pass on January 31.