Name: Xbox announces first game pass lineup of 2026
Uploaded: 2026-01-07T02:37:03.367Z
Duration: 4 min 35 s
Description: Microsoft has announced Wave 1 of its January Xbox Game Pass titles, and there are a few heavy hitters. Star Wars: Outlaws, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, and Resident Evil Village are headlining the service. Resident Evil is particularly timely, considering Requiem drops next month.

Microsoft has announced Wave 1 of its January Xbox Game Pass titles, and there are a few heavy hitters. Star Wars: Outlaws, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, and Resident Evil Village are headlining the service. Resident Evil is particularly timely, considering Requiem drops next month.

Microsoft has unveiled the initial Xbox Game Pass lineup for January 2026, featuring 11 titles available through January 20. Notable additions include Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws, Capcom's Resident Evil Village, and several other games launching across different dates in January. Microsoft described this as the first wave of releases, with more titles expected later in the month.

In other gaming news, Sony has filed a patent for an AI assistant that can help or take over gameplay, while Nvidia announced DLSS 4.5, an update improving image quality and frame generation for RTX graphics cards. These updates were highlighted alongside new features and hardware at CES.

Xbox announces first game pass lineup of 2026

What's up everybody, Damian here, and in today's gaming news we've got the first wave of Xbox Game Pass games for January, Sony patents an AI assistant that can play your games for you, and NVIDIA releases DLSS 4.5, the new daily fix. Microsoft has made its first Xbox Game Pass announcement of 2026, confirming a number of big hitters for January. The headline editions are Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws and Capcom's Resident Evil Village, but there's plenty more coming to subscribers this month. 11 titles in total were announced, taking fans through to January 20th. Available today, January 6th is twin-stick shooter Bruise and Bastards and Little Nightmares Enhanced Edition. Tomorrow, January 7th, Rebellion's Atomfall hits Game Pass Premium, as does Lost in Random, The Eternal Die, Rematch, and Warhammer 40k Space Marine Mastercrafted Edition. Moving on to January 8th, Final Fantasy, a remodeled, 2D take on the first game in the series, launches on Ultimate, Premium, and PC. Then, on the 13th, we have Star Wars Outlaws on Ultimate and PC. Two days later, My Little Pony, A Zephyr Heights Mystery will be added. January 20th sees Resident Evil Village, which is good timing given Resident Evil Requiem is out next month. And finally, also on the 20th, we have the only Day 1 launch of the month, Mio Memories in Orbit for Ultimate and PC. Microsoft described today's lineup as Wave 1 of January, so expect more games to hit Game Pass later this month. Moving on, PlayStation is exploring the possibility of letting an AI take over your game to help you if you're stuck. Patent documents filed by Sony show plans to offer an in-game AI ghost that can demonstrate how to progress further, or alternatively, have your control fully taken over in order to make progress for you. Intriguingly, Sony suggests the AI could be called upon at any time, trained from past gameplay clips posted on YouTube and Twitch, as well as play data gleaned from PlayStation Network. The idea is that the AI would be able to detect what a player is doing and compare it to past successful examples, then offer solutions. Sony's patent positions this new generation of AI assistance as superior to previous examples seen in games, evoking one unnamed example that sounds similar to Nintendo's Assist features seen in some Mario 2D platformers. Sony has suggested that its AI assistance system will be able to track player progress on a more granular level, so the AI would be able to detect exactly what someone might be looking to achieve at a particular moment. Of course, just because Sony patents an idea doesn't mean it will come to fruition. Back in 2021, it filed a patent for a system that would allow frustrated gamers to receive support from expert players. Sony has also previously patented a system that could make boss fights easier for those that are having a hard time. It's at least obvious that Sony is always thinking about ways to keep players from turning off their PS5 out of frustration. And finally today, Nvidia announced DLSS 4.5 at CES. It's an update to its Deep Learning Super Sampling feature that improves image quality on all RTX graphics cards now, and extends its frame generation abilities on RTX 50 series cards in the future. The fidelity and stability improvements come thanks to a second generation of the Transformer model that Nvidia introduced with DLSS 4, which has been trained on a significantly larger dataset and uses five times the compute power. That translates into noticeable improvements in how well challenging scenes are rendered, reducing artifacts like ghosting and shimmering, and improving anti-aliasing. These changes are rolling out with the GeForce 591.74 driver that's available for download now. The Nvidia app recently gained the ability to automatically upgrade older DLSS versions and mini-titles, so you can give DLSS 4.5 a try right away in over 400 supported games. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Remastered, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are called out for specific improvements. The other major upgrade is exclusive for GeForce RTX 50 series owners, and is set to come this spring in the form of an expansion of multi-frame generation. In short, 6x multi-frame generation means that it will be possible to generate five intermediate frames for every traditionally rendered frame on Nvidia's latest cards, boosting frame rates higher than the previous 4x limit allowed. Nvidia says that the update is designed for high refresh rate monitors at 240Hz or above, including the new 360Hz ultrawides announced at CES. Nvidia's other CES announcements include DLSS 4 confirmations for 007 First Light, Phantom Blade Zero, and Pragmata, upgrades to the RTX Remix modding tool, a range of Nvidia G-Sync Pulsar monitors with over 1000Hz effective motion clarity, and new GeForce Now apps for Linux and Amazon Fire TV. And that's your Daily Fix for Tuesday, January 6th. Now that you're caught up on the news, watch an exclusive deleted scene from Predator Badlands. I'm Damon Hadfield, and for all your video game news, stay tuned to IGN.

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Breakdown