From Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to Mafia: Definitive Edition, so many excellent games have landed in Game Pass over the past 12 months, but what were the biggest Xbox Game Pass launches of 2024? Well, we’ve pored over some player data out of all the games that have joined the service this year, and not just the best Game Pass games, to bring you the answer to that question.Black Ops 6 saw the biggest Xbox Game Pass launch in 2024 Unsurprisngly, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was the biggest Game Pass launch in terms of debut week player numbersAA games Evil West and Hell Let Loose show there is an appetite for smaller games among Game Pass subscribersMafia: Definitive Edition, which launched in 2020, is the oldest 2024 Game Pass addition in the top 10Using a sample size of over 2.4 million Xbox accounts, our Xbox Gameplay Chart data from GameInsights (which uses player data from both TrueAchievements members and the wider Xbox population as a whole) reveals that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, by far, saw the biggest Game Pass launch of 2024 when looking at debut week player numbers. With the awful Call of Duty HQ launcher bundling several CoD games together, untangling the player data for Black Ops 6 is a bit of a challenge, but our estimates put the latest entry into the FPS series firmly in first place. With Black Ops 6 being the first-ever Call of Duty to launch into Game Pass, it provides a much lower barrier of entry in terms of cost for players, both new and old — forget stumping up $70, just pay for a month of Game Pass. With the shooter being readily available in the service, those who may not have played a Call of Duty for a while, or ever, were likely tempted to fire it up to see what all the fuss was about. I know from my own personal experience that friends who haven’t touched a Call of Duty in years are now playing Black Ops 6 every night simply because they had it included with their Game Pass subscription. Considering just how popular the CoD franchise is and that his new entry into the series is so readily available with Game Pass, seeing Black Ops 6 at the top of the table shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Top 10 biggest Game Pass games of 2024 by debut week player count#1 — Call of Duty: Black Ops 6#2 — Palworld#3 — Indiana Jones and the Great Circle#4 — Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl#5 — Dead Island 2#6 — Diablo IV#7 — Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II#8 — Hell Let Loose#9 — Evil West#10 — Mafia: Definitive EditionWith a debut week player count 31% less than Black Ops 6, we have Palworld in second place. Palworld had a stranglehold over Game Pass users at the start of the year when it joined the subscription service in January — it even managed to dethrone Fortnite in our Xbox Gameplay Chart at the time. However, that success was somewhat short-lived as by mid-February, Palworld had lost a significant chunk of its Xbox player base. With that said, it’s still an incredibly impressive showing for a game that launched in early access and was relatively unknown at the time. Microsoft’s latest and greatest, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. A Game of the Year candidate for many and arguably the best Xbox game Microsoft has released in years, Indy’s latest outing managed to secure third in the top ten. Based on one of the world’s most recognizable IPs, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was always going to go down well with Game Pass subscribers who have instant access to what will surely be known as one of MachineGames’ finest-ever releases. In fourth, we have another big Xbox exclusive (at least for the time being), Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl. After multiple understandable delays, GSC Game World finally unleashed its excellent first-person shooter upon the Game Pass subscriber base, and it seemingly went down a treat. Despite some bugs here and there (technically, there are no bugs in The Zone, only anomalies), Stalker 2 had an excellent Game Pass debut, toppling the likes of multiplayer juggernauts Minecraft, Roblox, and GTA 5 in our Xbox Gameplay Chart. Since then, it has slowly slipped down the table, as all single-player games do, but it’s interesting to see that Game Pass subscribers are up for playing a hardcore survival first-person shooter that is unlike anything else included in the service. Dead Island 2 being the fifth biggest Game Pass game of 2024 by debut week player count is something we weren’t expecting. Considering the zombie-slaying adventure launched in 2023 to somewhat decent reviews, Dead Island 2 managed to beat out huge 2024 Game Pass additions Diablo IV and Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. While it’s likely that many of Diablo IV’s biggest fans had already purchased and played through the game when it launched in June 2023, it’s still interesting to see it beaten out by Dead Island 2 here, especially as Diablo IV was the first Blizzard game to join the service after Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.Towards the bottom of our list, we see two AA games make the top 10: Hell Let Loose and Evil West, which shows there is still a big appetite for smaller titles among Game Pass subscribers. Evil West only just pipped 10th place Mafia Definitive Edition, which, interestingly, is the oldest game out of the top ten, having first launched back in 2020. Well, that’s a wrap on Xbox Game Pass for 2024 and an interesting look back on what has been a pretty good year for the subscription service. What are some of your favorite 2024 Game Pass additions? Which games from our upcoming Game Pass games list will top the top 10 next year? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments. Xbox Gameplay Chart data is compiled using data from over 2.4 million active Xbox accounts (not just TrueAchievements accounts). Chart information is copyright Game Insights. Regarding this data:When an account opens a game, this is registered as a game being played. Accounts can only register a game once per week.Our data is good for suggesting general trends — we represent this using percentages, not numbers.
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