What Are You Playing This Weekend? (August 22-23)

It’s the penultimate weekend before everything goes gaga for Gamescom 2026!

Of course, I’m sure plenty of you will be playing a certain Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Beta, but don’t forget about the Free Play Days offering and the vast amount of heavily discounted games on the Xbox Store too!

Well then, without any further ado, here’s what we’re playing on Xbox this weekend:

Craig Reid, Staff Writer

I started playing BLiNX: The Time Sweeper on my ROG Ally last weekend, and It’s been a proper blast dipping back into one of my favourite original Xbox titles. I’m still so impressed by the time manipulation stuff, but mainly I’m just in it to vibe with my favourite feline.

Gears of War: Reloaded is on the table too. I’m hoping to get some games in with PX legend, Ben Kerry. That is if I can pry him away from the Modern Warfare 4 Beta – which I’m likely to try too.

Other than that, I’m still cracking on with Waterpark Simulator. It’s satisfying work building my ‘Sink Or Swim’ empire into something pretty awesome. This will also be my first full weekend with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, since honestly…February 2025? So, if I have any time left, I’d love to give Routine and Mixtape a go.

I hope you all have an awesome weekend!

Fraser Gilbert, Editors

Ugh, it’s been one of those weeks. You know what I mean? Just a series of days where little life problems seem to be getting in the way, putting me in the mood to slump on the sofa and play some games over a very lazy weekend.

Mafia: Definitive Edition is priority number one for me. I started playing it when the 60FPS upgrade went live recently, and I’m blown away by the first few hours. The quality of the visuals and the cutscenes in this game are phenomenal for a 2020 release – it reminds me of how unbelievable Ryse: Son of Rome looked when it came out in 2013.

Beyond that, I’m planning to play Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns, which I wrote about here at Pure Xbox recently – it’s a remade version of a classic Amiga title from 1986, complete with two brand-new modes that look very intriguing indeed. I never played the original back in the day, but it seems it was quite groundbreaking for the time.

Have a great weekend, folks!