Xbox Game Pass Update Adds 4 Retro Games
Xbox Game Pass has just added another four games to its Retro Classics service. With the addition of these four titles, the Retro Classics collection now offers a total of 103 arcade/early PC and console games, all of which are available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers for no additional cost.
Shadow-dropped with no prior announcement or forewarning, Xbox Game Pass’ Retro Classics collection arrived on May 21, 2025. A collaboration between Xbox and Antstream Arcade, the Retro Classics collection offers a plethora of emulated retro games from the deepest wells of Activision, Blizzard, and Sierra’s history in the gaming industry. At launch, Retro Classics offered 60 games, and over the last eight months that number has grown steadily, with around four games being added to the service each month.
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Xbox Game Pass Retro Classics Gets Four New Games in January 2026
Xbox Game Pass’ Retro Classics collection has just received its first wave of new games for the year. Much like last month, the January 2026 drop adds four new games to the Retro Classics service, those being:
- Sky Patrol
- Keystone Kapers
- Laser Gates
- Rise of the Dragon
Xbox Game Pass Retro Classics January 2026 Game Sky Patrol Explained
An Atari 2600 game with a rather mysterious origin, Sky Patrol hits the Xbox Game Pass Retro Classics collection in January 2026. Sky Patrol was developed by Imagic, an American company that was absolutely prolific in the Atari 2600 and Intellivision era. But unlike Imagic hits like Atlantis, Riddle of the Sphinx, and Demon Attack, Sky Patrol never actually hit store shelves. Instead, only a few prototype copies of Sky Patrol made it out into the wild in 1982, and they’re far from the finished product.
The currently playable version of Sky Patrol is an extremely rudimentary hot air balloon simulator in which players take to the skies and don’t really do much else. Though the finished game was allegedly going to feature a WW1 storyline in which players needed to avoid oncoming fire from enemy planes, this prototype iteration simply has players soaring upwards with no real goal to strive for.
Xbox Game Pass Retro Classics January 2026 Game Keystone Kapers Explained
Developed by Activision’s Garry Kitchen – a programmer and designer who’s now on the board of advisors for the National Video Game Museum – Keystone Kapers originally released in 1983 for the Atari 2600. Inspired by the ‘Keystone Cops’ shown in slapstick comedy movies made in the 1910s by Mack Sennett, Keystone Kapers has players taking on the role of police officer Kelly, who must chase the thief Harry Hooligan through a department store and apprehend the comedic criminal.
Xbox Game Pass Retro Classics January 2026 Game Laser Gates Explained
A side-scrolling spaceship shooter, Laser Gates also hit the Atari 2600 in 1983. Controlling the ship ‘Dante Dart,’ players must navigate their way through the interior of a supercomputer defense system, shooting down enemy ships and turrets along the way while avoiding a collision with the narrow tunnels they’re traversing. Much like Sky Patrol, Laser Gates was developed by Imagic, though this game did officially release to the masses.
Xbox Game Pass Retro Classics January 2026 Game Rise of the Dragon Explained
Skipping forward to 1990, Rise of the Dragon originally launched on DOS and was later ported to the Amiga, Mac OS, and Sega CD. Much like other 90s games developed by Dynamix like The Adventures of Willy Beamish (which is also in the Retro Classics collection), Rise of the Dragon is a graphic adventure game played from both a first and third-person perspective in which players move through environments, speak with characters, and solve environmental puzzles using the information and items they’ve gained along the way.
Source: TrueAchievements