The Xbox and a spare weekend is a pretty good combo right now.
Xbox has started another Free Play Days window for September and the list of available games is so varied it’s strangely difficult to decide which ones to download. There’s a major looter-shooter, two vastly different racing experiences, American football, a trip to Mars, and a storybook road trip.
The current Free Play Days event will occur from September 10 to September 13, 2026, and it allows players to experience six games for a short period of time without having to buy them in advance. But not all games are subject to the same access rules. Four of the games require an eligible Xbox Game Pass membership, two of which can be tried by Xbox players without a Game Pass.
Xbox Free Play Days games for September 10th – 13th
This weekend there are six games to choose from:
To play Borderlands 4, you need to be a member of Xbox Game Pass.
F1 25: 2026 Season Edition requires an Xbox Game Pass subscription.
You’ll need an Xbox Game Pass membership to play Surviving Mars: Relaunched.
CarX Drift Racing Online is playable with Xbox Game Pass membership.
EA Sports Madden NFL 27 is out for all Xbox gamers
Dustborn is free to try for two hours for all Xbox players.
Game Pass comes with Ultimate, Premium and Essential memberships. Dustborn has a limited two-hour trial, but you don’t need one of those subscriptions for the weekend promotion in Madden NFL 27.
That is a significant difference. Having six games that are being advertized as “free” can give the impression that every Xbox owner has free access to all of them. This weekend features a full weekend of subscriber access, a full free-play for Madden, and a timed trial for Dustborn.
The obvious first step is Borderlands 4.
If you only have time for one big download, Borderlands 4 will probably get the most attention.
Gearbox’s shooter blasts players off to Kairos, where four Vault Hunters face the Timekeeper and his reign over the planet. All the Borderlands staples are present and accounted for: a huge arsenal of weapons, character builds, Action Skills, crazy firefights, and the constant desire to replace perfectly good gear with something a little weirder that just dropped.
Free Play Days are a perfect fit for a game of this type. A trailer can showcase the guns, the explosions but it can’t tell you if the rhythm of shooting, looting, building experimentation and repeating is fun.
That question can be answered in a weekend on its own.
Borderlands 4 is available to eligible Xbox Game Pass members during the event.
2026 F1 25 handled.
Racing fans have a very different reason to take advantage of the weekend.
F1 25: 2026 Season Edition contains the base racing experience and the 2026 Season Pack which allows players to race beyond the 2025 season and experience the latest 2026 Formula One content.
This is an interesting addition, as it’s not just a temporary unlock for an old racing game. The 2026 iteration caters to gamers who are looking for a game with the latest Formula One season, with its teams and next-generation Grand Prix setting.
To those who have been debating whether the new update is worth coming back for or have skipped F1 25, three or four days behind the wheel should be much more useful than watching another gameplay video.
CarX Drift Racing Online is a whole different kind of driving.
CarX Drift Racing Online along with F1 25 also makes for a nice change of pace from the weekend.
The goal of F1 is to shave a fraction of a second off the time of a lap. CarX likes the car sideways shaped a lot more.
The game’s main draw is online play, car customisation and drifting, all backed up by a collection of over 100 cars and user made tracks. Xbox calls it a multiplayer drift sandbox which is a pretty good idea of what to expect.
So for those of you who like racing but don’t necessarily care about Formula One, there is an alternative way to the weekend.
Surviving Mars: Relaunched is for players who enjoy building.
Not every weekend off requires a steering wheel or a trigger.
Surviving Mars: Relaunched slows things down a bit and poses a much tougher question: can you keep a human colony going on Mars?
Players have to deal with the practical issues of a colony millions of kilometres away from Earth, manage resources, research technologies and build domes.
Its inclusion expands the Free Play Days slate significantly. It’s also the sort of management game that benefits from a test run. Screenshots of buildings and menus don’t tell you much about whether or not their systems will eat up your evening.
You will probably find the answer after an hour of play.
Eligible Game Pass members can access the Relaunched edition during the September 10-13 window.
The easiest game to recommend is Madden NFL 27.
One big plus for EA Sports Madden NFL 27 over most of the lineup this weekend is that it doesn’t require a Game Pass to check out.
On Free Play Days, the game is available to all Xbox members.
Madden NFL 27’s Persona Engine lets you add individual player personalities that impact motivations, demands and reactions in Franchise mode. EA has also worked on pre-play controls, defensive coverage, battles between receivers and defensive backs, and short-yardage situations.
Current Madden players will already have opinions on annual changes. Absent from recent editions, players now have a low-risk opportunity to find out if this year’s modifications are sufficiently significant to bring them back.
To answer that question , you don’t have to purchase .
Dustborn has got two hours to make its case.
Dustborn is different than other games.
Xbox will offer a two-hour trial from September 10 to September 13, instead of the whole weekend.
In an alternate America, Pax, an exiled con artist, is given the job of taking a package from Pacifica to Nova Scotia. A lot of the experience is the people she travels with, the conversations they have, the relationships they form, and the strange things that happen to them along the way.
Two hours, of course, is not enough for the entire journey. But it should be enough to give you a sense of whether the visual identity, storytelling style and characters of the game are to your liking.
What Xbox game should you start playing for free?
And this line-up is actually the strongest line-up, because there is no universal winner.
Looking for a fast, loud vehicle? Start with borderlands 4.
Want to get some competitive circuit racing under your belt? Download F1 25: 2026 Season Edition.
Are you into car culture, multiplayer and drifting? CarX Drift Racing Online is the better choice.
Would you like to spend Saturday pondering the reasons for the disintegration of your Martian colony? Relaunched Surviving Mars has you covered.
In sports it’s easy to judge Madden NFL 27, because there is no Game Pass.
If you also have a limited amount of time to play, the two-hour trial of Dustborn is the least commitment.
How to Download the Games for Xbox Free Play Days
Players on an Xbox console may access the Free Play Days collection by opening the Xbox Store and navigating to the Subscriptions section. Eligible players can get to the Microsoft Store through the individual game pages on Xbox’s website, where they can install participating titles after signing in.
And don’t worry, any progress you made during the Free Play Days won’t be lost when the promotion ends. Xbox states that players who choose to purchase a participating game will be able to keep their Gamerscore and achievements. Some participating games are also on temporary discount; however, prices and availability may vary by title and region.
Don’t get confused with a free weekend with free to keep.
One possible snag to think about before you finish the SSD.
These games are not permanent free to play games, they are free for a limited time only.
Free Play Days ends when the event closes on Sunday, September 13, so players will need to purchase the game or have it available via another subscription to continue playing. Dustborn is even more limited as its promotion is a 2-hour trial rather than unlimited weekend access.
This means the weekend is not so much about the buying of games but the proper testing of games.
Also there is a lot of material to look at this time.
There are six Xbox Free Weekend Games: shooters, Formula One, drifting, strategy, American football and adventure with a story. You could spend the whole weekend playing Borderlands 4 or you could jump between Mars, an NFL stadium and a drifting lobby without buying an extra game.
The clock is already running.
Xbox Free Play Days ends September 13, 2026.