Free Games This Weekend: Xbox Free Play Days, PS Plus Deadlines, and What's New on Game Pass

Xbox Free Play Days: Act Fast, These Expire Sunday

If you've got an Xbox and haven't grabbed this weekend's Free Play Days lineup, the clock is running out. Four games are free to play through August 30, 2026: NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER, ARK: Survival Ascended, FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves, and Control Ultimate Edition. That's a genuinely varied spread, from anime brawling and survival crafting to fighting game and supernatural third-person action, so there's a decent shot something on that list fits whatever mood you're in this weekend.

• NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER, free through August 30
• ARK: Survival Ascended, free through August 30
• FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves, free through August 30
• Control Ultimate Edition, free through August 30

There's also a beta running alongside the free weekend titles: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's beta is playable through September 1, 2026, at 17:00 UTC, giving it a bit more runway than the Free Play Days games. If Call of Duty is your thing, that's the one with a slightly longer window to squeeze in matches before it locks back up.

PS Plus: Claim Your Monthly Games Before They're Gone

PlayStation Plus subscribers have until August 31, 2026, to claim this month's Monthly lineup: Dying Light 2 Stay Human: Reloaded Edition, Big Walk, and Signalis. Once claimed, these stick around in your library for as long as you keep your subscription active, so even if you don't play them right away, grabbing them before the deadline locks in access. Dying Light 2's Reloaded Edition bundles the base game with its expansions and years of post-launch tuning, Big Walk offers a lighter multiplayer walking-sim style romp, and Signalis remains one of the more acclaimed survival-horror indies of the last few years for anyone who missed it.

Separately, and with no expiration attached, PlayStation's Extra tier catalog picked up a substantial round of additions this month. Unlike the Monthly claim games, these are available to play on-demand as long as you're subscribed to Extra or Premium, without needing to individually claim anything.

• Helldivers 2
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Vampire Survivors
• Hell is Us
• Umamusume Pretty Derby – Party Dash
• Two Point Museum
• Metro Exodus
• Dying Light 2
• Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams
• Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire

It's a strong batch across genres: Helldivers 2 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II are two of the bigger releases of the past couple years now landing in the catalog, Vampire Survivors is the addictive roguelike everyone's played in some form by now, and the Onimusha and Atlantis additions round things out with older-catalog picks for anyone chasing nostalgia.

Xbox Game Pass Wave 2: A Big, Varied Drop

Xbox Game Pass's second wave for August is one of the larger additions in recent memory, headlined by the Gears of War: E-Day Open Beta going live for subscribers to test ahead of the prequel's eventual release. It's a chance to get hands-on with the game well before launch, and it's included at no extra cost as part of the Game Pass subscription itself.

Beyond the beta, the wave brought over 20 additional titles into the catalog, spanning action, simulation, roguelike, retro shooters, and more. Grouped roughly by type, here's what landed:

Action, Combat, and RPG

• BlazBlue Entropy Effect X
• Relooted
• Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy
• Young Suns
• Beast of Reincarnation

Classic Shooters

• Wolfenstein 3D
• Heretic + Hexen

Survival, Simulation, and Building

• Grounded 2
• PowerWash Simulator 2
• Starsand Island
• Sandustry
• Blood Dungeon

Roguelike, Puzzle, and Arcade

• Ball x Pit
• Bounty Star
• Egging On
• Aerial_Knight's DropShot
• Monsters are Coming!

Everything Else

• Vapor World: Over the Mind
• Date Everything!
• Cricket 26
• Mio: Memories in Orbit

That's a wide net to cast in a single wave, and it means there's genuinely something for almost every taste in the catalog right now, whether you're chasing Grounded 2's survival crafting sequel, want to relive Wolfenstein 3D and the Heretic and Hexen era of shooters, or just want to power wash things in PowerWash Simulator 2.