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Last year saw the release of some fantastic games, and one of our favorites was Arcade Paradise–a business simulator crossed with a full-fledged arcade experience. If you’ve been waiting to try it but haven’t gotten around to it, it’s now available on Xbox Game Pass. Unlike the washing machines in the arcade’s front area, you don’t need any quarters.
Now free to play on both the Xbox and PC versions of Game Pass, Arcade Paradise is a remarkably strange game given the simple premise. You play as Ashley, a college dropout who has returned to her hometown, tasked with running her father’s laundromat in his absence. After discovering an arcade machine in the business’s back room, Ashley decides to slow transform the building into a full-blown arcade, gradually reducing the number of washing machines and trying to hide it from her dad.
Yes, playing the arcade games (and purchasing even more machines) is a large part of Arcade Paradise’s fun, but there is also a real joy out of seeing Ashley grow the business, and there are even a few dark, unexpected turns that somehow make Arcade Paradise one of the best game stories of the year.
Pretty much everything you do is its own minigame, as well, including a very intense “fight” to remove gum from a toilet. By the time I had turned the business into a successful arcade, I genuinely wished it were real so I could spend my weekends hanging out and beating other regulars’ high scores.
For more on Xbox Game Pass this month, check out the games coming to and leaving the service. In addition to Xbox and PC, Arcade Paradise is also available on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation.
