How Xbox Game Pass is giving fans the first Battletoads in 26 years

Developers Rare and Dlala Studios just released Battletoads for PC and Xbox. This is the latest entry in the classic beat-’em-up series, but it’s also the first new Battletoads since the arcade game in 1994. And like other recent releases from Xbox Game Studios, the Netflix-like subscription service Game Pass is key to giving Microsoft the confidence to bring the radical amphibians back.

“I think it’s fair to say that Battletoads wouldn’t have been greenlit in a world where Xbox Game Pass didn’t exist,” Rare audience and brand strategy director Simon Prodger explained to GamesBeat. “Most franchises don’t leave 26 years between games. That’s a long time, and whatever fanbase Battletoads had back in the ’90s had become distributed and diluted. Bringing Battletoads back into that environment would have been tough, but Xbox Game Pass gave us an at-scale subscription service to launch into, where members are actively looking for new content to try.”