The 10 Best Xbox Game Pass games you're probably not playing

#5 Thomas Was Alone

Thomas Was Alone

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a sucker for games that have dry, sarcastic British dudes (who may or may not be Stephen Fry) narrating them. Thomas Was Alone has that, and it adds an element of accessibility to what turns out to be kind of a pretty dark narrative. There's a lot of deep - sometimes depressing - science fiction concepts going on here for a game where you're basically playing as a bouncing rectangle (and other shapes, too... I don't want anyone to think I'm prejudiced against other shapes.)

(Would that make me a shapist? I should probably move on...)

Thomas, the titular hero of the game, is an A.I. construct that has recently become self aware, and is trying to make his way through a program (what constitutes this game's world) and figure out who he is. Despite the title, Thomas does actually end up meeting other A.I.s, each of which have their own special abilities. There's lots of puzzle solving involved, with some of them getting hair-tearing-out frustrating at times, but they're all fun.

As I said, the story takes some weird, dark turns and it's worth solving all those puzzles to find out what happens. Also, the music is fantastic. This is just a great game all around.