Xbox Gold’s Final Games To Be Indies, Blue Fire & Inertial Drift

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Xbox Live Gold, or just Xbox Gold, is a service that was mostly popular a decade ago on the Xbox 360; At the same time, the Xbox Live brand continued to flourish and spawn things like Game Pass.

So now, with the premium edition that would grant you free games every so often slowly dying off and merging into a single combined plan on September 1st, 2023. We welcome the last Xbox Gold free games to the roster.

This means in August, we’re getting the final free games to be added to the service, and Xbox has just now announced them as Blue Fire and Inertial Drift. These indies have some excellent ratings on all their platforms, so if you still have access to Games with Gold, you should be interested.

Blue Fire

Image by Graffiti Games

Blue Fire is an indie 3D platformer with a bit of soul-like combat. It has a wonderful-looking, Wind Waker-esque art style, features some intense platforming, and is a pretty simplistic game, all things considered, where you go through a gauntlet of challenges to open the path to the end of the game.

Despite that simplistic nature, it’s got extremely high ratings on every platform. It looks like a quality time worth checking out if you’re looking for an action platformer with tough challenges, boss fights, a hub world with fantastic characters, and have Game Pass or Games with Gold.

Inertial Drift

Image from PQube

Suppose you’ve ever wanted an arcade racer with some highly prevalent Initial D inspiration and a ton of drifting around mountain tops using cars with cool headlights while blasting Eurobeat in the back. In that case, this is your game. It also features PVP and Twin-Stick controls for more precise steering and drifting.

I think this game is worth checking out if you enjoy arcade racers or are an Initial D enjoyer. It’s got excellent details like the headlight trails, an anime cel-shaded art style, and quite a few beautiful backgrounds and visuals. If you’ve got Game Pass or Games with Gold and want to take the wheel on one of the last free games, you should check it out.

Overall, these two games are highly rated, and quality indie games, but many people have gotten upset because they’re smaller titles and not exactly sending the service out with a bang. Still, I think these two titles are worth checking out if you’re into platformers or arcade racers since it’s not like you’re getting anything else for free anytime soon.

Further Reading

If you want some new games to play on Xbox or some quality indies in general, stay here for the latest news, guides, and lists.

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