Xbox Game Pass’ new creature-collecting game is a cozy Palworld alternative

While a lot of the hubbub around day-one Xbox Game Pass games centers around first-party titles (or lack thereof), Microsoft’s subscription service has been surprisingly consistent when it comes to snagging quality indie and AA games for the service the day they release. These are often some of the best, most creative games on the entire service, whether that’s because they experiment with gameplay mechanics or just tell a really good story.

This year alone, games like Another Crab’s Treasure, Dungeons of Hinterberg, and Palworld all were on Xbox Game Pass the day they were released and offered up some of the year’s most memorable experiences. Creatures of Ava from Inverge Studios and 11 bit Studios is the latest enjoyable third-party game that you can add to that lineup, as it uniquely blends several elements from different games to create a special, nonviolent sci-fi adventure.

Inverge Studios calls Creatures of Ava a “creature-saver” game. In practice, that means it’s a third-person action-adventure game in which players tame the creatures of an alien planet, use them and a magical staff to solve environmental puzzles, and then collect them to save them from a dying planet. Players control Vic, who’s part of an expedition to the planet of Ava to save its species from a planetwide infection called The Withering.

Creatures of Ava’s story is nuanced, circumventing a lot of the colonialist tropes that can come with this kind of premise. It offers nuance to its strong message about how we should live in harmony with the environment, as all living things are ultimately connected to the planet we live on. These narrative themes are reflected in the gameplay, which is more about cleansing and documenting rather than destroying.

Early on, Vic finds a staff that allows her to purify Withering that corrupted plants and animals. This is used to open up new pathways to explore and is part of the closest thing Creatures of Ava has to combat. While withered enemies will attack