New Xbox Game Pass Retro Classics freebie reaches 1 million active players

A portion of subscribers is willing to bite on Xbox's latest Game Pass freebie, showing the attraction of 40 year-old games.

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Last month, Microsoft added a surprise bonus for Xbox Game Pass members: Access to a treasure trove of old-school games, including Atari games like Pitfall, Kaboom!, and even MS-DOS games like MechWarrior. Dubbed the Retro Classics collection, the plethora of 50 golden age titles is actually served up by a cloud game streaming service called Antstream, which had made a subscription deal with Microsoft shortly after 2023's FTC antitrust trial.

This program is getting sizable engagement from subscribers; New updates show that over 1 million people have actively played the Retro Classics since the freebie launched last month. The last official update from Microsoft put Game Pass subscribers at 34 million.

Antstream plans to bring more than 120 games to Retro Classics by 2026.

Check below for more from today's announcement:

Antstream is excited to share that Retro Classics, its ongoing collaboration with Xbox that launched with over 50 classic games to Xbox Game Pass members, has surpassed 1 million active players less than four weeks from launch.

Game Pass users have spent their time enjoying classic titles such as Pitfall!, Kaboom!, Commando, and Mech Warrior 2, playing across Xbox consoles, the Xbox app on PC, or streaming on supported LG and Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV devices, and Meta Quest headsets.

The second drop of games is now live, bringing Cosmic Commuter, Heart of China, Skiing, Solar Storm and Subterranea to the Game Pass community. More than 120 titles are planned along with new challenges, tournaments, and content throughout 2025 and well into 2026.

"We're thrilled with the success of the Retro Classics launch, and so happy the Game Pass community has enjoyed heading into the past with the iconic titles on offer with many experiencing them for their first time. We're excited to continue our collaboration with Xbox into 2026, and can't wait to share what comes next," said Steve Cottam, CEO of Antstream.