It's that time of the year again when Microsoft gives us a chance to play a selection of games coming to Xbox in the future, and this year's ID@Xbox Game Demo Winterfest event has more than 30 titles available until the end of December.
Running until December 31, the ID@Xbox Game Demo Winterfest is your chance to check out a selection of games coming to Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One soon — or take an already-released game for a spin before you buy it. All of the games featured in the event are part of the ID@Xbox program, so this is a great opportunity to support a number of independent developers as they prepare to launch their upcoming games. So, without further ado, here are the Xbox demos that will be available throughout December.
502's Arcade
502's Arcade is an anthology of fast paced arcade games where your goal is to reach the top of the leaderboards in each one. The games go from a dungeon crawler set in a procedural-generated temple where you have to seal spirits, to a cute but challenging puzzle where you have to prepare the orders of a very hectic potions shop. Come and get that good old feeling of competition you got when going to the arcade, or just have fun and challenge yourself by trying to get all the achievements for each game.
Backbeat
- Release date: March 17, 2023
- Coming to Xbox Game Pass:No
- Backbeat demo
A mashup of puzzle and strategy games. Manipulate four threads of time to guide your band through sokoban-style puzzles. Manage squad resources over a set of limited turns. Experience a homage to 1990s ensemble dramedies. Customize the dynamic soundtrack with audio effects.
Captain Bones
You are Captain Bones, a pirate captain who worked your way up from the bottom. In a world full of danger and opportunity, you must use your skills and determination to survive and thrive.
Champion Shift
Fight. Shift. Survive. Champion Shift is a unique action roguelike where our Champions fight endless hordes of enemies and traverse branching stages with the ultimate goal of defeating the Dominion and those who control it. In every run you will uncover endless combinations of abilities and skills, recapturing your mythical powers and earning your status as Champion.
Chessarama
Chessarama is a collection of original puzzle and strategy games inspired by Chess. It reimagines chess rules and tactics using many different themes. Each game has its own set of rules, visual theme and original handcrafted challenges for you to play!
Deceive Inc.
Go undercover as the world’s greatest secret agents in this multiplayer game of social stealth and subterfuge. Disguise yourself as anyone to blend into the crowd, deploy high-tech gadgets to gain the upper hand, and extract the package before the competition takes it for themselves! No trick is too dirty when you work for DECEIVE INC.
Dinosaur Fossil Hunter
Dinosaur Fossil Hunter is a storytelling simulator where you live a real paleontologist's life. Explore different lands, search, uncover and study uncovered fossils, and prepare the skeletons to build your own museum. You will learn many interesting facts about these extinct creatures that walked the Earth millions of years ago.
Donut Dodo
Donut Dodo is a light-hearted arcade game, reminiscent of the beloved classics from the early 80's that we still cherish to this very day. You play as Baker Billy Burns, who has to run, jump, and climb to outwit Donut Dodo and his bunch of clueless minions. Your goal is to collect all donuts in each level, in the best possible time!
Go Mecha Ball
- Release date: TBD
- Coming to Xbox Game Pass: No
Get ready to roll, shoot and boost your way through a futuristic wonderland in pursuit of an ever more glitched-out rogue AI, uncovering and mastering an increasingly ridiculous arsenal of weapons, abilities and upgrades as you go. Blast your enemies to bits as a gun-toting walking mech, and knock your foes into the abyss as an agile rolling ball!
Hidden Through Time 2: Myths & Magic
Join Clicky on a new, enchanted adventure in Hidden Through Time 2: Myths & Magic! This charming 2D hidden object game is sure to delight with its playful tone, cozy vibes and endless fun. Search for all the hidden objects scattered around beautiful hand-drawn worlds, and unlock more as you go. With both a single player campaign and an online mode where you can create your own dreamworld, the adventure never ends!
Howl
- Release date: January 23, 2024
- Coming to Xbox Game Pass: No
- Howl demo
Howl is a turn-based tactical folktale set in medieval times. A sinister "howling plague" has ravaged the land, turning all who hear it into feral beasts. You play a deaf heroine plunging into danger in search of a cure.
Kiborg
- Release date: TBD
- Coming to Xbox Game Pass: No
- Kiborg demo
“Strictly Combat” demo for KIBORG - upcoming 3D Slasher/RPG with rogue-lite elements. Play an endless arena with leaderboards and extensive progression between runs. Share your experience and help us make the game better!
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale
Enter the nightmarish realm of Avalon in King Arthur: Knight's Tale - a dark fantasy retelling of the Arthurian legend. Face untold dangers in this tactical RPG featuring deep combat, moral choices, character progression, Camelot's rebuilding, and management of the Round Table.
Kingdoms and Castles
Your kingdom must survive a living and dangerous world. Do the viking raiders make off with your villagers? Or are they stopped, full of arrows, at the castle gates? Does a dragon torch your granary, your people dying of starvation in the winter, or are you able to turn the beast back? The success of your kingdom depends solely on your skill as a city and castle planner.
Long Gone Days
Long Gone Days is an RPG set in the real world about human connection during war, focusing on civilians, language barriers, and borders.
New Star GP
Download the New Star GP demo and prepare to experience racing at its most thrilling! New Star GP is a fast and exciting motorsport game with crisp retro visuals in which you race from the 1980s to the 2020s. Upgrade your car, choose your race perks and pit strategy, and battle a grid of CPU opponents and ever-changing weather conditions to win the championship and unlock the next decade of racing! Invite your friends to share in the fun with hectic split-screen multiplayer action for up to four players in a selection of pre-made championships, or use Create-a-Championship Mode to make your own! In the New Star GP demo, you can race the first five locations from the 1980s: from the wide track and sweeping bends of Northampton, to the tight hairpins and power straights of Quebec; and sample two player split-screen multiplayer in the Novice and European Track Cups!
Oppidum
- Release date: TBD
- Coming to Xbox Game Pass: No
Face the challenges of Oppidum, a cooperative multiplayer adventure. Collaborate, craft, fight, and dive into a captivating story to uncover a powerful truth. A world hanging by a thread needs your help – will you answer the call?
Parcel Corps
Skid onto the sun kissed streets of New Island, where three bicycle courier corporations are vying to become the biggest, most profitable business in town! Pick a side then lock handlebars forming two-wheeled rivalries in pursuit of market share, influence, and a modest income.
Pinball FX
Discover brand new exclusive tables created for Pinball FX, or find your favorites among more than 80 unique and visually enhanced favorites from Zen's extensive digital pinball library. Relive the most iconic moments from entertainment powerhouses like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Marvel, Universal Studios, and many more. Enjoy accurate re-creations of the most famous pinball machines of all time with Williams Pinball, or have fun with Zen’s original creations.
Pinball M
- Release date: November 30, 2023
- Coming to Xbox Game Pass: No
- Pinball M demo
Get ready to tilt into terror. The new horror-inspired pinball platform for fearless players. Prove your skills on the most sinister, gory, and badass tables ever brought to life.
PlateUp!
PlateUp! combines chaotic kitchen and restaurant management with strategic planning and development to create a delightful roguelite dish unlike any other.
Puzzledorf
- Release date: TBD
- Coming to Xbox Game Pass: No
Play through a variety of beautiful worlds solving interesting puzzles. A vibrant, block-pushing puzzle game where simplicity meets surprising solutions.
Roguematch: The Extraplanar Invasion
Roguematch is a new way to experience turn based dungeon crawling Roguelikes! Not only do you hack and slash your way through the castle, you also attack your enemies with raw mana by matching pieces next to them!
Shoulders of Giants
Get an early look at our upcoming Shoulders of Giants: Ultimate update in this exclusive demo. Play as four unique new classes including the brain-freezing Arctic Core and the killer-kawaii Kitty Core!
Sker Ritual
The Quiet Ones are back in this round-based survival shooter and spiritual successor to the award-winning British horror, Maid of Sker! Face hordes of new and familiar enemies, supercharged elites with unique supernatural powers, upgradeable steam-punk weapons, interchangeable spine-chilling masks and mysterious story objectives from writing talent behind Maid of Sker, Battlefield 1 and Total War: Rome II.
Slave Zero X
From the top of Megacity S1-9, the Sovereign Khan rules with fists of iron and flesh. Beneath the city’s rotting foundations, a vengeful warrior embarks on a journey to murder him. 5 years prior to the events of Slave Zero, Slave Zero X brings new life to a world where horrific, living machines known as Slaves are primed to become the latest tools of war in humanity’s long and bloody history. A secret band of warriors known as The Guardians hope to stop these biomecha from being unleashed upon the world, but one swordsman among their ranks has a different idea: use the enemy’s own weapon against them. By merging with a stolen Slave Unit Prototype, Shou will become a furious Devil in pursuit of killing a false God.
Slopecrashers
Slopecrashers is an arcade snowboard combat racer in which a wild crew of animals band together on a world spanning snowboarding tour! Do stunts & combos for extra boost and collect items to protect yourself or attack competitors! Ride on your own or battle it out in 4 player local multiplayer!
Space Boat
'Space Boat' is an investigative narrative adventure set on an intergalactic cruise-ship inhabited by various carpet-based lifeforms. Play as a cleverly disguised space cat, customize your undercover mech suit, survive the perils of space travel, and track down an elusive shape-shifting jewel thief before it's too late!
SquadBlast
- Release date: TBD
- Coming to Xbox Game Pass: TBD
SquadBlast is a free-to-play multiplayer run and gun shooter. Its team-based battles are an innovative take on a shooter that you have to experience — meticulously balanced for fairness and incredibly easy to pick up and play. In SquadBlast, every bullet matters. You'll need to adapt diverse lines of attack to claim victory in a variety of modes. Play cross-platform with your friends for free on Xbox Series S|X, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, web, cloud and PC with full controller support.
Strings Theory
Inspired by the romantic side of physics, we take you on an epic journey into the heart of Anomaly. Control three unlikely heroes with their own personalities and skills. Beat more than 50 brain-twisting levels. Save the microcosm from a deadly threat!
The Holy Gosh Darn
Rewind time and save the future in this hilarious time-travelling adventure game. In six hours, Heaven will be destroyed. Unless you can save it. Use your powers of time travel to jump freely between the past and present across Heaven, Hell, Earth and Helheim. Uncover information in one timeline to alter things in another in a bid to stop your universe from going bang. Again.
The Land Beneath Us
The Land Beneath Us is a turn-based rogue-lite action dungeon crawler. Use powerful skill combos and stylish weaponry to battle your way through the Underworld known as Annwn. Enjoy challenging dynamic encounters and discover the mysteries of this mythological world.
Vagrus – The Riven Realms
Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Prologue is an early Demo to Vagrus - The Riven Realms, an award-winning roleplaying game with a narrative focus, open-world exploration, and strong elements of strategy. The player takes the role of a vagrus - a caravan leader who strives to survive in a strange and dangerous dark fantasy world by leading a traveling company on all kinds of ventures.
If checking out these demos puts you in the mood for some freebies, why not check out some of the best free Xbox games or the best games on Game Pass, for those of you with a subscription?