Wacky shooter High On Life, lone a week aft its archetypal merchandise connected PC and Xbox Game Pass, is presently the astir fashionable crippled connected the service, beating retired big-name Xbox titles and long-running games similar Minecraft. It’s a motion the shooter has a batch of fans, but besides an denotation of conscionable however sparse Xbox’s big, first-party offerings person been successful 2022.

Released connected December 13 connected Game Pass, High On Life received mixed reviews from critics and initially was a messiness astatine launch. Shortly aft release, a spot fixing immoderate of the worst show issues deed and the game is much playable now (if you don’t caput Rick and Morty-like humor.) And it seems a batch of radical person decided to springiness High On Life a go, according to the constricted information we person via Xbox.com and the Game Pass app.

On the authoritative Xbox website, you tin spot a wide database of the “Most Popular” Game Pass games, and according to that site—as of 5:20 p.m. EST connected Dec. 19—High On Life is the astir fashionable rubric retired of the full Game Pass collection. A glimpse astatine the Game Pass app connected Android and iOS reveals a akin story, though the database connected the app is somewhat different, with Lego Star Wars not successful 2nd but sixth. (My conjecture for the flimsy discrepancy: the app and website are pulling from the aforesaid information but astatine antithetic times.) Meanwhile, connected the PC Game Pass app, High On Life is besides astatine the top, up of Darktide and Microsoft Solitaire. 

So connected the 1 hand, this is simply a large happening for High On Life developer Squanch Games and Justin Roiland. A batch of radical are playing the caller shooter crossed Xbox and PC. That’s large for each the folks (and AI algorithms) who worked hard connected the game, and it’s bully to spot a caller IP doing good successful an epoch of gaming wherever it seems everything is simply a remake, sequel, oregon reboot. But connected the different hand, this besides seems similar a tiny indictment of Game Pass’ existent authorities and its deficiency of strong, caller first-party releases. While Sony and Nintendo are putting retired large exclusives similar God of War and Pokémon, Microsoft successful 2022 has been incapable to vessel its ain akin big-name titles.

This year, Microsoft has lone released 1 caller crippled for Xbox and PC that was developed by 1 of its ain interior studios: the humanities communicative crippled Pentiment by Obsidian. Regardless of what you deliberation astir that game, that’s not a large output erstwhile compared to Sony oregon Nintendo.

In comparison, successful 2021 Xbox Game Studios released Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Psychonauts 2, and Age of Empires IV. Would High On Life person done astir arsenic good and been arsenic fashionable connected Game Pass successful 2021 going up against those titles? I don’t know. I can’t look into alternate dimensions. But I bash deliberation a deficiency of large games from Xbox (and successful wide this year) has helped smaller and medium-sized titles, similar Evil West and High On Life, bash amended than usual. Which, successful the agelong run, is simply a bully thing. But however overmuch longer volition a ample chunk of Game Pass subscribers support paying for the work if the biggest games that get connected it get elsewhere and Xbox’s large hitters, similar Gears and Halo, are obscurity to beryllium seen?