Xbox Free Play Days Brings MLB The Show 26, Anno 117, The Survivalists, and Age of Mythology: Retold to Players This Weekend

Chilly spring weekends are perfect for digging into your backlog, and Xbox is lining up a strong slate of time‑limited trials to help you do just that. This weekend’s Xbox Free Play Days lineup gives players a mix of sports, strategy, survival, and classic real‑time mythology, with MLB The Show 26, Anno 117: Pax Romana, The Survivalists, and Age of Mythology: Retold all available to try for a few days at no extra cost if you have the right membership. According to the latest Xbox Free Play Days post on Xbox Wire, the promotion runs from Thursday, April 23 through Sunday, April 26, giving you four days to see which of these titles deserves a permanent spot in your library.

Xbox Free Play Days

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and Essential members can access three games—MLB The Show 26, Anno 117: Pax Romana, and The Survivalists—this weekend, with achievements carrying over if purchased. Additionally, Age of Mythology: Retold is available to all Xbox players without a subscription, allowing everyone to experience its modernized version.

The mix caters to very different tastes. MLB The Show 26 remains the go‑to baseball sim, with this year’s entry pushing deeper Road to the Show systems, a more involved Franchise mode, and upgraded on‑field visuals that shine on Xbox Series X|S. Anno 117: Pax Romana, the latest in Ubisoft’s long‑running city‑builder series, drops you into the Roman Empire as a governor balancing beauty, efficiency, trade, diplomacy, and military might as you juggle the cost of “peace.” Meanwhile, Team17’s The Survivalists offers a lighter, sandbox‑style survival experience set in The Escapists universe, where you can explore, craft, and even train monkeys to automate tasks, either solo or with up to three friends.

Age of Mythology: Retold, developed by the Age of Empires team, revitalizes the original game’s blend of historical RTS with mythology, featuring updated visuals and design while retaining its beloved essence. It supports Xbox Play Anywhere and is available on both PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass, allowing players to choose their preferred platform. Additionally, all four titles are temporarily discounted, enabling players to continue their progress without losing any Gamerscore.

For players, this particular Xbox Free Play Days weekend feels like a smart snapshot of what the platform wants to be known for: big‑budget sports realism, deep city‑building, co‑op survival, and refreshed strategy classics. With only a few days to try them all, which of these four games are you most interested in testing first, and why does it catch your eye more than the others?

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