January 2021's Games With Gold Lineup Includes Dead Rising And Breakdown

TheGamer

By Peter Glagowski

Published Dec 22, 2020

Microsoft will be giving Xbox Live Gold subscribers Dead Rising and Breakdown, among others, in January 2021.

We may not be getting any next-gen titles on Games with Gold yet, but Microsoft is really bringing out the big guns next month. In January 2021, Xbox Live Gold subscribers will be given Dead Rising, Breakdown, Little Nightmares, and King of Fighters XIII to add to their collections. Apart from maybe Breakdown not having aged all that well, these are excellent games that every gamer should give a shot.

Dead Rising isn't backward compatible, so you'll actually be getting the enhanced Xbox One port of the game. There isn't much that has changed aside from a bump to 1080p output, but the game is free of performance hiccups and does grant you the ability to actually suspend your console when going for that asinine seven-day survivor achievement. It's little quality of life changes.

King of Fighters XIII is also primed to be an appetizer for when SNK officially unveils King of Fighters XV next month. Being an excellent entry in its own right, the immaculate pixel art is bound to look incredible on a 4K TV...even if the Xbox 360 version doesn't natively support that resolution. I'm sure the Series X has some kind of upscaling method that will make the fighter shine.

Breakdown and Little Nightmares I'm not overly familiar with, but both have large cult followings that will sing their praises. Breakdown was fairly revolutionary when it came out in the mid-2000s, but its first-person combat was later perfected by the likes of The Chronicles of Riddick. It's not a bad game, all things considered, but it does become repetitive after a rather electric opening sequence.

I'm not sure how Microsoft will follow this month up, but things are looking pretty good for 2021. With Sony having no real answer to Game Pass and only offering smaller indie titles on PlayStation Plus, Microsoft is in a good position to keep users subscribed to its service over Sony's. We'll just need to see what the competition has in the cards.

Here's when you'll be able to grab each game next month.