Welcome to our weekly Xbox news recap series, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Xbox. Let’s get started.
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection now free with Multiplayer All-Access event
If you’re like the majority of people who play either shooters or RPG’s, you at least have a passing admiration for the Borderlands franchise. The first Borderlands came out of nowhere to a decent amount of retail success many years ago, and then absolutely blew up with a tremendous commercial and critical success in Borderlands 2.
Accompanying the Multiplayer All-Access weekend from the 27th to the 30th, Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is now available for free on the Microsoft Store. The collection includes Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel – the two games that feature Handsome Jack. If you were looking for some games to play and hadn’t tried these yet, here’s your chance!
You can broadcast through Beam with the Xbox Game Bar
Microsoft announced during the Creator’s Update event that gamers would be able to stream their gameplay through Beam using the Xbox Game Bar. Beam, a streaming service built around helping streamers and viewers interact in real time, is going to be offering a much less complicated option to people who have thought about streaming but just didn’t want to deal with all of the technicalities. Instead of having to set up programs like XSplit or OBS to stream, you can now start streaming by pressing a couple of hotkeys and having the whole thing taken care of for you.
Games with Gold for November announced
Games with Gold are a big part of what makes Xbox Live Gold membership great, and their announcement at the end of each month is something that Xbox users always look forward to. The Games for Gold in the month of November have been announced, and they offer a fairly strong lineup. For Xbox 360 and Xbox One Backward Compatibility, you have Monkey Island: Special Edition and fan favorite Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. On Xbox One, you have Super Dungeon Bros and paranormal noir thriller Murdered: Soul Suspect.
Xbox One Preview update brings bundle of fixes and tweaks
If you’re lucky enough to be a part of the Xbox One Preview program, you’ll have gotten an update this week that brought a bunch of tweaks to your console. While no new features were thrown in, you’ll find that Cortana is a bit quicker now. Also, the Store is more reliable, Clubs aren’t quite as glitchy anymore, and a few other bugs have been taken care of. Hopefully, these fixes will be sent over to average Xbox One users sooner than later.
Microsoft named Publisher of the Year at the Clio Key Art Awards
Microsoft has recently had a ton of success with the Xbox One, bringing a lot of people into the fold with the release of the Xbox One S and the launch of quite a few new games over the past few months. Because of its involvement with over 35 different pieces of work this year including CGI trailers, advertising campaigns and more, Microsoft was crowned the Publisher of the Year at the Clio Key Art Awards. These folks have been giving out awards since 1971, so getting such a prestigious title from them is worth celebrating.
Here are the games that came out this week:
- Battlefield 1 debuts at #1 in UK sales chart
- Batman: The Telltale Series’ latest chapter is now online for Xbox One
- 6 new Xbox One video games that launched this week
- Xbox One gets some more Backward Compatible titles with Rage, Killer is Dead, and Shred Nebula on tap
- Titanfall 2 is now available for Xbox One
Thanks for joining us. To keep up to date with all the latest Xbox news, keep a close eye on our Xbox One news hub.
