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After Microsoft's recent news of Game Pass membership updates, featuring a price increase for the Ultimate Tier to $30 per month, many members are looking for fresh ways to maximize their subscription. If you keeping their subscription or considering signing up, we present this week's picks.

This weekend's games feature a beloved Japanese role-playing game, a charming independent adventure, and a brilliant puzzle game set to leave the platform shortly.

Persona 4: The Golden Edition

Among the best methods to get your money's worth from Game Pass is by immersing yourself in a lengthy, engaging role-playing game — and Persona 4 Golden fits that bill exactly. Players step into the role of a teenager who has just moved to the quiet rural town of Inaba. During the day, your objectives include forming friendships, working employment, and keeping up with studies. At night, you investigate a chilling string of murders by exploring strange locations based on your companions' deepest insecurities.

With a memorable cast of characters, tactical turn-based combat, flawless art design, and a plot packed with twists, Persona 4: The Golden Edition is considered a classic for many reasons. It also features a incredibly engrossing gameplay loop that will have you playing late into the night, repeatedly.

Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato

Although big releases like Ninja Gaiden 4 are a key attraction for the service, the subscription also highlights smaller games. A perfect instance of this is Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato. Drawing from Spirited Away, this charming independent adventure is a magical realist tale rooted in South American culture. Players join Miho, who, after helping his grandmother make soup, is pulled into a colorful realm filled with potato-nabbing frogs and various quirky animals.

Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato plays out like an learning-focused computer title from the 90s, as Miho solves puzzles and helps the realm's inhabitants by collecting an inventory of items. Even if it's a bit rough around the edges, Sopa is a heartwarming little experience that openly showcases its appreciation for the region's culture.

Cocoon: A Puzzle Adventure

Cocoon is set to leave the service on October 15, giving you only a few days to play it via subscription — and you definitely should. Developer Geometric Interactive designed one of the finest puzzlers of recent years in the 2023 release Cocoon. Its core gameplay element revolves around transitioning between worlds within other dimensions, and frequently you'll carry those realms, in the shape of colorful orbs, with you.

While it lacks explicit guidance, everything about Cocoon's puzzles is designed in a highly intuitive manner, yet they can test you as well. 2023 was a big year for games, so it's understandable if Cocoon: A Puzzle Adventure was a bit missed by the masses. Let's rectify that now.