Best Single Player Games on Game Pass Right Now

My rule for weeknight games is simple. I need to be able to stop whenever a kid needs something or my eyes give up. Hades II fits that as well as anything on this list, because a run lasts about half an hour and even a failed one hands you something to spend. You play Melinoë, fighting up from the Underworld with a weapon you choose, and each boon from the gods changes how that weapon behaves. The combat is fast, readable, and generous with dodges. It is also a lot to take in early, with menus and currencies stacking up before you know what they do.

A hundred hours is a number I normally walk away from. Persona 5 Royal talked me round because the game is cut into in-game days, and each day is a natural place to put the controller down. You spend afternoons building friendships and evenings clearing Palaces, which are dungeons shaped by a villain's warped desires. The turn-based combat is stylish enough that menus feel like a performance. Be warned, though. The opening several hours are mostly dialogue, and if you want action in the first evening, it will test you. That slow start is the only reason it sits behind Hades II. After that, the payoff is huge.

My wife glanced at the screen, saw cards and a growing pile of chips, and asked if I was gambling. Not quite. Balatro takes poker hands and turns them into a roguelike, where Joker cards bend the scoring rules until a pair of twos is suddenly worth millions. A run takes 20 to 40 minutes, which means one more is always on the table. The first hour is the rough part, because the scoring maths only makes sense once you have lost a few times. There is no story and no world to wander. That keeps it off the top spot. On a tired Tuesday, though, it is the one I open first.

Each year the Paintress wakes, paints a number on her monolith, and everyone of that age disappears. Expedition 33 sets out to stop her before the next number catches up with them. I went in expecting a pretty RPG and ended up wanting one more chapter every night, because this is a story that has something to say and does not waste it. Combat is turn-based but asks you to dodge and parry in real time. The timing takes a while to click. Difficulty options soften the early hours. At 30 to 50 hours, it asks for more commitment than Balatro or Hades II, which is why it sits fourth.

Ghost of Tsushima worked on me because the setting was real, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II does the same thing in 1403 Bohemia. Henry is a blacksmith's son, not a chosen one, so he starts out bad at nearly everything. Sword fights are slow and deliberate. I lost my first proper duel after walking in confident, which is the game's way of teaching respect. After Valhalla, I am wary of enormous maps, but here the quests respond to how you tackle them, and the countryside is worth the walk. It asks you to learn its systems before it gives much back, which is why it lands fifth and not higher.

The Prince of Persia I know best is the PS2 one, played with a friend, passing the controller back every time somebody fell off a wall. The Lost Crown is a very different game, a 2D metroidvania starring Sargon, but the acrobatics still feel good in the hands. Combat is quick, with parries that reward timing, and the map is full of ledges you cannot reach yet. A neat touch is the screenshot feature, which lets you pin an image of an unreachable spot to the map as a reminder. At 20 to 30 hours, you can actually finish it. Late backtracking can drag.

Cyberpunk 2077 launched broken in December 2020, and plenty of people wrote it off for good. That verdict is out of date. After years of patches, Night City is dense, loud, and gorgeous, and on my S95F the neon and rain look exceptional, though a good OLED flatters anything. V's story with Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves, carries the campaign, and side gigs often tell small, sharp stories of their own. The map is still cluttered with icons, and the odd bug survives. I skip most of the collectables and lose nothing.

Death Stranding is the only game on this list I would hand over with a warning. You are Sam Porter Bridges, a courier walking across a ruined America with too much cargo, and the first few hours are mostly that: walking, balancing weight, and learning that a slope is a decision. I nearly bounced around hour three. It is slow on purpose. Then the story, the music, and the strange loneliness start working on you. It does have online features, but they are asynchronous. Other players' ladders and bridges simply appear in your world, and nobody ever joins or interrupts you. Nothing else on Game Pass feels like it.

A finished game feels good, and Psychonauts 2 is the shortest campaign on this list. It runs 12 to 18 hours across levels set inside people's minds, so a single evening usually covers a whole idea. Raz enters a head, and the game turns an obsession or a regret into a place you jump around in. The writing is jokey and kind in equal measure. Platforming is a little floaty and combat is the weak part. I played it in short evening bursts over about a week and actually saw the credits, which is not something I can say about most of my backlog.

Uncharted and Tomb Raider are part of why I play games at all, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the nearest thing to them on Game Pass. It is a first-person 1937 adventure with Troy Baker doing a convincing Harrison Ford, and it moves from the Vatican to Giza with a whip, your fists, and whatever is lying nearby, frying pans included. The set pieces and puzzles keep the 15 to 25 hours moving. Stealth is serviceable rather than clever. It does not reinvent anything, which is why it closes the list. On a weeknight, that is plenty.