Best new Xbox Game Pass games to play this weekend (May 15-17)

Published May 15, 2026, 4:31 PM EDT Subnautica 2 made waves this week Xbox Game Pass got 3 great new games this week Image: Unknown Worlds Entertainment/Krafton Sign in to your Polygon.com account May is a stacked month for new games, and Xbox Game Pass' first wave of new titles for May 2026 is no exception. Mixtape has been loved by nostalgic millennials, while Forza Horizon 6 is already looking like one of the best games of the year. But they're not the only games hitting Xbox's subscription service in May. Here are three of the best titles that landed on Xbox Game Pass this week. 1 Subnautica 2 Subnautica 2 was finally released this week into early access, after a legal battle over a potential $250 million payout between fired executives and its publisher. It sold one million copies in an hour and is past two million sold as of this writing. Players are enjoying the underwater exploration game, in which you build a base and document alien life forms (solo or in co-op), as the game has already racked up over 13,000 "Very Positive" player reviews on Steam. In Polygon's impressions piece, we compared it to the first one, calling Subnautica 2 "definitely more of the same, but better. But it's still an excellent survival game with strong potential." If you're diving in for the first time this weekend, we have you covered with beginner's tips and other guides to help your exploration. 2 Black Jacket Black Jacket is a deckbuilding roguelike inspired by the simple foundations of Blackjack. While your goal is still to get 21 (or as close to it as you can), additional rules and card abilities make that task more difficult. Some cards allow you to decrease your total, while other cards can be swapped between players. You only have a limited number of coins to bet with, and once you lose them all, your run is over. Your main goal is to escape hell, but each run reveals a little bit more about who you are — and why you're in hell in the first place. 3 Call of the Elder Gods Call of the Elder Gods is like if Indiana Jones found himself investigating a Lovecraftian mystery. It's a narrative-focused adventure with plenty of tricky puzzles to solve. Those puzzles get tougher to piece together as the game goes on, with more complex elements being added every step of the way. "[Developer] Out of the Blue Games is on to something. The team is learning how to create brainier puzzles that test your ability to observe your surroundings closely," we wrote in our impressions of the game. Related