Norco

This Southern Gothic point-and-click adventure might be PC-only, but its presence on the non-console Game Pass is significant enough to break all our rules. Following your mother’s death, you return to your hometown of Norco, trying to find your missing brother amidst a magical realist rendition of 21st-century South Louisiana. Norco is a real town on the outskirts of New Orleans, built around the oil refineries on the banks of the Mississippi. In the game, this industrial swamp is given a bleak sci-fi coat of paint, a world where robots exist but are barely used, where everything is run down, where the possibilities of technology are abandoned, ruined. Extraordinarily good writing elevates Norco above the crowd, while its spectacular pixel art evocatively renders the ambiguous view of hope in its overarching tale.

A Good Match For: People looking for a gut punch of a narrative.

Not A Good Match For: Anyone who hates point-and-click games.

Rough Average Playtime: 7 hours