Xbox Game Pass free game is a hidden gem you need to play

Whenever a friend and I want to catch up over some video games, we like to choose a co-op experience on Xbox, as he doesn’t own a PlayStation. With both of us having a subscription to Xbox Game Pass, the choice is usually pretty good and most recently, an old favourite of ours got a third instalment on the Xbox service.

Orcs Must Die! 3 is a horde mode game where you fight off waves of gnarly, green orcs intent on destroying you and your world. You can fight them directly, via ranged weapons or huge swords and axes, plus you can lay traps that will damage the horde, slowing them down and stopping them from getting past you.

We decided to give it a spin, years after we last played Orcs Must Die! 2 on PC.

Orcs Must Die

The game, it should be said, is kind of background noise for two mates, who live at different ends of the UK, to catch up and talk about life while having some fun at the same time. Having said that, it distracted us enough that we started to implement some proper tactics and the casual chat became more sporadic in favour of: “How the hell are we going to deal with this boss?”

So, Orcs Must Die! 3 has ported very well to controller play, and things like traps can be scrolled through very quickly, though speed isn’t always needed when it comes to prepping the area. The orcs are seemingly very polite, only arriving in waves and taking breaks so that we can scurry about and place some more traps. Traps come in various forms; spikes that jut out of the floor, flame throwers, potato mashing platforms that stomp down from the ceilings. The traps cost set amounts of money and can be upgraded using skulls which are rewarded at the end of a level, depending on how well you’ve performed.

So, you can’t go mad and place countless traps, it is pretty entertaining to just use the cheapest trap, the spike floor, and line the orc pathways watching them be constantly stabbed in the legs. By the time they reach the end, they’re usually pretty hurt, but these are just the grunts, it’s the bosses and the non-orc enemies where things get spicy.

Orcs Must Die

New creatures pop up as the campaign progresses. My favourite is the Earth elemental enemy which breaks down into smaller versions of itself as you weaken it. The appearance of these different enemies begins to require different traps, some that deal out Area Of Effect damage or damage over time, like the acid traps. By the time we’d spent a couple of hours with the game, we were hardcore strategising and restarting levels in order to secure a perfect score - any enemies that get through and enter the portal you’re protecting will lower the score, or cause a game over.

Orcs Must Die 3! can be a super casual experience, especially on the lower difficulties. I’d even say, die to only featuring cartoon violence, it could be played as a family game. It was the ideal game for us, we could chat away quite happily between rounds before planning on how we would proceed. It’s much more fun with friends than running it solo, so I’d recommend grabbing a buddy, but if you’ve got Xbox Game Pass, give it a spin and mash up some orcs.