Xbox Drops New Freebie, No Game Pass Needed

Xbox has just dropped a new freebie, and you don’t even need Game Pass to access it.

Obsidian Entertainment has had a good run this year. Earlier in 2025 it released the highly-awaited RPG Avowed, shortly followed by Grounded 2’s early access launch in the summer.

Next week, Obsidian will release its third game of the year, The Outer Worlds 2. And since the developer is a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft is promoting the game in its usual spaces.

As part of this marketing push, Xbox has released a new dynamic background for fans on Xbox Series X/S to use. These are essentially themes for your Xbox console that have special effects or moving parts involved.

The background features Moon Man, the mascot for Spacer’s Choice and an image that has become associated with the series. As for the dynamic elements, the background features moving spaceships that come in and out of view. If you’d like to pick up this dynamic background for yourself, boot up your Xbox console and head to the settings menu. From there, go into Personalisation and find My Background.

Obsidian Entertainment

You’ll find the background for The Outer Worlds 2 among a list of themes for other games on Xbox. These are pretty much based on most Xbox-owned properties, as well as any other big releases that have come out in recent years.

From scrolling through the list, you’ll find dynamic backgrounds for Amazon’s Fallout TV series, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and Doom: The Dark Ages.

It’s always worth checking back from time-to-time to see if Xbox has added new backgrounds. I can imagine one will be added for the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 next month, as well as the second season of Fallout in December.

The Outer Worlds 2 is out on 29th October, 2025 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.

It’s a standalone sequel to the first game, set in the same universe but containing new characters and locations.

You play as an agent working for the Earth Directorate, an administrative body tasked with coordinating between Earth and its colonies. Over the course of the game, you must uncover the source of emerging rifts that threaten to destroy the colony amidst a factional war.

It’s quite Fallout-esque but with more of a focus on space travel, with pulp sci-fi, Art Nouveau and Old West influences.