MLB The Show 26 and The Alters headline this weekend’s Xbox Free Play Days lineup

Xbox players have a new Free Play Days lineup for the weekend, with MLB The Show 26, The Alters, and Stuffed available to try for a limited time. The promotion gives subscribers a chance to sample three very different games, covering sports, sci fi survival, and cooperative FPS action.

This week’s offer comes with one important restriction. Unlike some previous Free Play Days weekends, none of the games are available to players without a Game Pass subscription. You will need Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, or Essential to access the lineup. That applies even to the single player titles in the selection.

The promotion runs until Sunday, July 12, at 11:59 PM PT. After that, access will end unless you already own the games or buy them separately. As usual with Free Play Days, progress should carry over if you decide to purchase a title after trying it.

This week’s lineup covers baseball, survival drama, and teddy bear firefights

MLB The Show 26 is the biggest name in this week’s selection. The baseball sim from Sony San Diego Studio continues the long running sports series with new systems and an expanded career path. One of the key additions is an automated ball strike challenge system, letting players contest pitch calls. The career mode also goes further back in the player journey, allowing your custom athlete to begin from high school before moving toward professional baseball.

The Alters offers something very different. It is a sci fi narrative survival game built around base management, exploration, and emotional decision making. You play as Jan, a man stranded on a hostile planet, who must work with alternate versions of himself. Each alter has different skills, memories, and emotional baggage, which turns survival into both a technical and personal challenge.

Stuffed rounds out the lineup with a lighter but chaotic setup. It is a procedurally generated first person shooter where up to four players control armed teddy bears fighting waves of nightmares inside a little girl’s dream. The focus is on cooperative survival, replayable stages, and fast wave based action.

To find the Free Play Days titles on an Xbox console, open the Store, go to the Home section in the sidebar, then select the Subscriptions tab. The available Free Play Days games should appear there for easy access during the promotion.

This is a useful weekend lineup because each game targets a different type of player. Sports fans can test the newest MLB The Show entry, survival and narrative players can try The Alters, and co op groups can jump into Stuffed for a quicker multiplayer session.

The main drawback is the subscription requirement. Since all three games are locked behind Game Pass tiers this time, players without a membership cannot use the promotion. Still, for active subscribers, it is a low risk way to test games that may not be obvious purchases.

MLB The Show 26 is likely the safest pick for sports fans, while The Alters may be the most interesting option for players looking for something more unusual. Stuffed is best suited for groups who want a simple weekend co op game. The offer is short, so anyone interested should claim and install the titles before the promotion ends on July 12.