Check out the December Xbox Free Games With Gold

It’s a new month, which means there is a brand new batch of games available for free with Microsoft’s Games with Gold program. As we do every month, let’s dive in and take a look to see if these games are worth trying to find space on your hard drive to play.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (XBOX 12/01-12/15)

A decent little hack n slash adventure that has been on PC for a good little bit. This is The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing’s console debut and it looks like they actually added a few little extras in as well. If you enjoyed Diablo style games, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one.

CastleStorm (360 12/01-12/15)

It’s a tower defense game with a few unique mechanics. While you have to dispatch your knights and warriors to combat the waves of enemies that will try to siege your castle, you also control a ballista that serves as an Angry Birds-like aspect to keeping enemies out of your castle. It’s a fun time killer, if not anything else.

Thief (XBOX One 12/16-1/15)

The Thief reboot was a solid game but seemed a little bit more supernatural than most people expected when it first came out. Not a horrible game and easily worth the time to play through, the game offers some really fun mechanics and still has one of the best jumpscares that I’ve seen in a game in quite a while.

Sacred 3 (360 12/16-12/31)

Wasted potential. That is the only thing I can really think of when I see this game. It offers a somewhat decent story but the gameplay itself is painfully vanilla and almost the entire game seems like a tutorial that is just about to unleash you. A lot of great ideas, sadly just executed in a way only Deep Silver can.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (360 12/16-12/31)

A decent FPS game in a very similar vein as the popular ARMA series. Much more slower paced that your Call of Duty-type games, I really didn’t like this one when it first came out. Yeah, you can rig a battlefield to work to your advantage before a firefight, but I was never a big fan of slower paced action games.

There you have it, the Xbox One games for this round of Games with Gold are pretty good pickups, even CastleStorm isn’t a horrible game. Sacred 3 and Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, however, are much more dollar bin games that you’ll enjoy when there is absolutely nothing else to keep you busy.

Josh Knowles

Longtime games journalist and Florida resident. I'm a Guinness World Record holder, wordsmith extraordinaire, MOBA fan, devoted dad and husband. I'm here to spread the gospel of video games.