Xbox Game Pass Is Getting One Of PlayStation’s Greatest Games

I'm ecstatic about the new games coming to Xbox Game Pass today, January 21, not because I'm a subscriber (I'm not, at the moment), but because more people will have an opportunity to try one of my favorite games, Death Stranding. Game Pass's January 2026 lineup is incredibly strong with the likes of Resident Evil Village, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, but the headliner is Death Stranding, a brilliant former PlayStation exclusive and one of the best games of all time.

January 21 marks the Game Pass debut of Death Stranding Director's Cut, the revamped, enhanced version of Kojima Productions' 2019 masterpiece which originally launched exclusively for the PS4. The Director's Cut is the definitive version of Death Stranding, and is the only version of the game that has been brought to new platforms after 2020. While Death Stranding's intellectual property rights were originally held by Sony, Kojima Productions acquired them in 2024 and immediately ported the game to Xbox, in turn opening the door for its addition to Game Pass.

Death Stranding Director's Cut Is On Game Pass As Of January 21

Death Stranding Director's Cut is now available on Game Pass for Premium, Ultimate, and PC subscribers. It can also be played via Xbox Cloud Gaming, and is a great candidate for the streaming tech, since it's light on combat and usually pretty forgiving with input timing, so a little latency won't be an issue.

The Director's Cut was originally something of a next-gen upgrade, giving Death Stranding a slight bump in visual fidelity and effects, but it also introduced a slew of new content. It added new weapons, vehicles, structures, equipment, missions (called Orders), customization options, mini-games, and more, plus a few subtle combat improvements. Death Stranding Director's Cut is the only version that has come to Xbox (and now Game Pass), but there's virtually no reason to play the original release – all the new additions are integrated seamlessly throughout.

Death Stranding Is One Of The Best PlayStation Games & One Of The Best Games Ever

We're big fans of Death Stranding here at Screen Rant (and even then, I'm a bigger fan than average). We awarded Death Stranding our 2019 Game of the Year award, called it "one of the best experiences in modern gaming" in our initial review, and even listed it among our best games of all time.

I can list accolades all day – and even point you to my rave review of the sequel as well – but I understand Death Stranding is still divisive. It garnered a lot of interest during its enigmatic marketing campaign, in which digitized Norman Reedus kept waking up on a beach naked, but quickly caught a lot of flak for how much walking is involved in actually playing.

Death Stranding's biggest weakness is that it doesn't shed the "walking simulator" accusations quick enough; the introductory segment is very, almost unnecessarily long. You're treated to some incredible visuals in the opening region, and I'd argue it's worth it for the very well-thought-out but still incredibly bizarre science fiction, but Death Stranding doesn't reveal its full hand until you've faced the first major boss and advanced to the second, larger region.

Then the pieces start to fall into place. Death Stranding is more accurately described as an asymmetrical multiplayer delivery infrastructure simulator – it just happens to be wrapped up in Hideo Kojima's eccentric world building. You and numerous other players contribute a wide variety of structures to each other's game world. You can contribute raw materials to large projects like roads and bridges, but you can also simply place smaller structures like generators and observation towers. Even hiking paths that are commonly taken literally wear down the terrain so that it becomes easier to navigate.

Combined with Death Stranding's deconstruction of basic gameplay elements like movement, where a wrong step can send you tumbling, and inventory management, where every item has size, weight, and durability, the game becomes a transcendent experience of cooperation. Your goal is to reconnect a fractured society in Death Stranding's fictional world, but it often feels like you're genuinely helping and being helped by strangers.

Most people who have been keenly interested in Death Stranding have likely tried it by now, but the Director's Cut's addition to Game Pass is an opportunity for it to reach an even wider audience. Death Stranding is one of the most inventive games to come out of PlayStation in recent years, but now it's on Xbox Game Pass, and subscribers get to experience something truly unique.