Xbox's 25th Birthday Bundle Is Free — or $570

Microsoft's 25th anniversary present to itself was supposed to be a freebie. The 25 Years of Xbox Bundle — 25 games marking a quarter century since the original Xbox launched in November 2001 — was built to ride along free with qualifying new Windows 11 PCs this holiday season. On Monday night it turned up on the Microsoft Store as a standalone purchase, priced at $569.99, as Pure Xbox first reported. Anyone in the United States can buy it now, PC purchase or not — and the Store listing finally put the complete list of games on the record.

The free route is the one Microsoft actually designed. Buy and activate a qualifying new Windows PC — select Windows Home machines and handhelds from participating U.S. retailers or manufacturers — between November 2 and December 31, 2026, and the bundle is yours at no extra cost, according to Microsoft's offer terms. It shows up in the Microsoft Store app under Library, in the Included with device section, no later than November 30. You claim it with the same Microsoft account you activated the PC with, one bundle per account, and the deadline to claim is February 12, 2027.

The lineup is a family reunion. The headliners are Skyrim Special Edition, Halo, Gears of War: Reloaded and Fallout 76, and around them Microsoft stacked the full sweep of its history — strategy pillars like Age of Empires, id Software shooters, and genuine original-Xbox deep cuts like BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, Fuzion Frenzy and Crimson Skies that have not headlined anything in years. Here is the complete list of the 25 entries in the bundle, as listed on the Microsoft Store and reported by Pure Xbox and TrueAchievements:

• Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
• Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition
• Age of Mythology: Retold
• As Dusk Falls
• Battletoads
• BLiNX: The Time Sweeper
• Call of Duty: WWII
• Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
• DOOM + DOOM II
• Fallout 76
• Fuzion Frenzy
• Gears of War: Reloaded
• Gears Tactics
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• Minecraft Dungeons
• Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire — Ultimate Edition
• Quake
• Quake II
• Rise of Nations: Extended Edition
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition
• The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind Upgrade
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
• The Outer Worlds
• Wolfenstein: The New Order
• Zoo Tycoon: Ultimate Animal Collection

One counting note: the Store sells DOOM + DOOM II as a single entry, and the Halo entry is The Master Chief Collection — which is where Combat Evolved Anniversary lives — so the 25 entries hold more than 25 games once you open the collections. The bundle is built for PC; about half the entries also carry their Xbox console versions through Play Anywhere, Pure Xbox noted, including Gears of War: Reloaded and DOOM + DOOM II.

So is $569.99 ever the right way to buy this? On the math, it works out to roughly $23 a game — and a lot of that shelf is old catalog, the kind of titles that cycle through deep Microsoft Store sales and, in several cases, already sit on Game Pass. As a standalone purchase it is a collector's price, the kind you pay because you want the whole set in one click. The bundle's real value is the one it was born with: as a free throw-in on a PC you were already buying, 25 games and 25 years of Xbox history is a genuinely generous gift. If a new Windows PC or handheld is anywhere in your holiday plans, that is the version of this deal to chase.