November's Game Pass highlights includes both irradiated mutants and complex avionics

GamesSupportedNovember’s Game Pass highlights includes both irradiated mutants and complex avionicsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: GSC Game World)

A Stalker, posing.

November is a time for reflection, gazing out of the window at a carpet of dead leaves, and convincing yourself that you’ll rake them up some day. Which, let’s be real, is about as likely as you ever clearing your teetering backlog of games to play.

So instead of trying to battle the backlog, let’s embrace it, and dive into the infinite game plunge that is PC Game Pass. This November, I will be taking to the skies, packing supplies for a jaunt around an anomaly-laden wasteland, and honing my reflexes to scalpel sharpness in a game that some (me) are calling ‘2D Sekiro.’ It’s a varied selection, so let’s take a look at PC Gamer’s top picks.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Three planes flying in formation over the desert in MSFS 2024

Nice new touches like preflight inspections pull you into the whole holistic flight experience that bit more, while Earth is more detailed than ever, boasting big numbers like over 2000 handcrafted points of interest, thousands of airports, not to mention the procedural generation of 1.5 billion buildings and 3 trillion trees scattered across our planet. Oh, and for the first time, you can land anywhere in the world, with a whole bunch of biomes to explore on the ground.

(Image credit: GSC Game World)

stalker 2 heart of chornobyl

Metal Slug Tactics

(Image credit: Dotemu)

Metal Slug Tactics, isometric turn-based strategy

If you were around in the ’90s, there’s a good chance you threw a good few weeks' worth of pocket money into the Metal Slug arcade cabinets. The beautifully drawn, richly animated run-and-gun shooter never really went away, with plenty of iterations coming to PC over the years, but Metal Slug Tactics is the series' biggest overhaul to date, changing things up to a turn-based tactical format.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

And it’s a success for the most part,according to our Dom. Somehow it manages to retain some of that zippy pace of the arcade games while offering a healthy dose of tactical, precise combat in the vein of PCG favourite Into The Breach. Pick your ragtag crew of three soldiers, each with unique abilities, send them onto handcrafted battlefields against seemingly insurmountable odds, cause some colourful carnage, extract.

Nine Sols

(Image credit: Red Candle)

Nine Sols

It’s always a fine margin between death and glory in Nine Sols, but the combat is so finely tuned that it rarely feels unfair. Sure, it’s maybe a bit too easy to get lost in the interconnected ‘vania world, but that world is such a feast for the eyes that even in those moments it’s hard to complaintoo muchabout.

…and assorted delights from Acti-Blizz

(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

black ops 6 season 1

Given that it was the biggest gaming news in recent years, you might have heard about Microsoft’s acquisition of a little company called Activision-Blizzard. One of the many outcomes of this has been a steady trickle of some of the biggest games from the behemoth publisher’s catalogue coming to Game Pass.

The headliner right now is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which has just landed with a slick new movement system adding some action-movie chops to largely familiar fast-paced shooting. Strategy veterans, meanwhile, will be delighted to see that both StarCraft Remastered and the StarCraft II Campaign Collection have arrived this month, while the likes of Diablo 4, Crash N. Sane Trilogy, and Overwatch 2 have been around on the platform for a while now. Now, if they’ll just give us Diablo 2: Resurrected, my autumn will be complete.

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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024#

Metal Slug Tactics#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

Nine Sols#

…and assorted delights from Acti-Blizz#

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Metal Slug Tactics

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Nine Sols

…and assorted delights from Acti-Blizz