10 Best Platforming Games on Xbox Game Pass (August 2026)

Want to dive into some of the best Xbox Game Pass platformers in 2026? Game Pass is packed with amazing adventures where you can jump, climb, and fight through beautiful worlds. So, whether you love fast action or slow exploration and puzzle solving, there’s something perfect waiting for you.

What Defines the Best Platformers?

Great platformers go beyond just jumping across gaps. The best ones bring sharp level design, solid mechanics, and a world that feels fun to move through. Some hit hard with fast combat and big challenges. Others take their time with deep stories or clever puzzles. What matters most is how each part of the game stays interesting.

With that in mind, this list ranks top 10 Xbox Game Pass platforming games that offer different strengths, from tight challenge-based stages to slower, more atmospheric journeys. Starting at number 10, here are the platformers worth checking out in 2026.

10. Another Crab’s Treasure

Play as a tiny hermit crab fighting through ocean trash with whatever shell you can find

So you know how soulslike games are usually all dark fantasy and brooding knights? This one said forget all that and put a hermit crab in the lead role. You play as Kril, a little crab who gets his shell taken away and has to go on a whole journey to get it back. The ocean floor is a massive junkyard, with human garbage piled up everywhere, and Kril can wear different pieces of trash as his shell. A soda can, a thimble, a tennis ball, each one changes how you block and fight. The combat has that dodge-and-punish feel you’d expect, but the platforming layers on top with vertical underwater sections, hidden tunnels behind coral, and shortcuts that loop back to earlier areas once you find them.

The writing is funny in a way that catches you off guard, like the NPCs have this dry humor about living in a polluted ocean that hits right between boss fights. Speaking of bosses, they go hard. You’ll be laughing at a silly crab pun one minute and then getting absolutely demolished by some massive contaminated sea creature the next. Swapping shells before tough encounters becomes its own mini-strategy because certain trash pieces have special abilities attached to them. If you’ve been wanting something with solid combat, good platforming, and a concept that’ll make you smile while it kicks your teeth in, Kril’s got you covered.

9. Limbo

Guide a small boy through a shadowy black-and-white world full of deadly traps

Limbo has been around for over a decade now, and it hits just as hard as it did back then. The whole thing is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer done entirely in black and white, with this grainy, silhouette art style that sets the mood from the very first second. You play as a young boy searching for his sister, and the game tells you absolutely nothing beyond that. There’s no dialogue, no text, no cutscenes explaining what’s happening. You just wake up in a dark forest and start moving right.

The puzzles start simple enough, maybe pushing a box or timing a jump over a pit, but they escalate quickly into these multi-step brain teasers involving gravity switches, spinning gears, and moving platforms that demand precise timing. Death comes fast and often here, and the game leans into that with some pretty brutal animations for a little shadow kid. Giant spiders, bear traps, buzzsaws, drowning, you name it and this boy has probably died to it. Each death teaches you something about the puzzle, so you’re constantly picking up on patterns through failure and adjusting your approach on the next attempt.

8. Little Nightmares II

Two tiny kids navigate a world built by oversized, horrifying adults

Little Nightmares II is a sequel that brings back Six from the first game, but this time you play as Mono, a kid with a paper bag on his head. The two of you move through these distorted, oversized environments like schools, hospitals, and city streets where everything towers above you. Enemies are these grotesque, exaggerated versions of adults, and they patrol areas in patterns you have to study before making your move. Six helps you reach ledges and solve cooperative puzzles throughout, and her interactions with Mono tell their own story through body language and small animations.

Chase sequences in this game hit different. The camera pulls back just enough to show you exactly how close whatever’s behind you is, and your heart rate goes up immediately. Between those moments, the puzzle-platforming slows things down and asks you to figure out how to use objects in the environment to cross gaps, avoid traps, and slip past enemies undetected. The later chapters demand tighter platforming with less room for mistakes, and the hazards stack up more aggressively as you go. Also, the ending is one people still argue about online.

7. It Takes Two

A co-op adventure where a divorcing couple gets shrunk into tiny dolls and has to work together

This whole game exists because of one idea: what if two players had to cooperate through every single second of a platformer with zero option to go solo? You and a friend play as Cody and May, a married couple about to split up, who get magically turned into small clay figures by their daughter’s tears and a very annoying talking book. From there, you’re platforming through oversized versions of everyday environments, and each chapter completely changes what abilities you both have. In one section you might be swinging around with a hammer head while your partner shoots nails into walls to create platforms. The next chapter throws all of that out and gives you both something entirely new.

The variety here is wild because the game refuses to let any single mechanic stick around long enough to get stale. You’ll go from riding a pair of underpants like a hang glider to grinding on rails through a musical level to piloting a tiny plane inside a toy runway, all within a couple of hours. Boss fights need both players pulling off coordinated moves at the same time, and nailing those moments together feels incredible. The story has emotional weight too, with Cody and May’s relationship evolving through all these shared experiences, and the game earns its big moments by the end. If you have someone to play with, this one is a must-play 3D platformer on Xbox Game Pass.

6. Human Fall Flat

One of the best Game Pass platformers to play with a group of friends

Human Fall Flat thrives on the idea that your character is terrible at everything. You control this floppy, doughy humanoid who can grab ledges, push objects, and climb walls, but every single action looks absolutely ridiculous because the physics engine treats your body like wet rubber. Climbing a simple wall means flailing both arms upward and praying momentum carries you over the top. Swinging across a gap feels like a minor miracle every time you land it. The puzzles themselves are surprisingly clever, with multiple solutions for nearly every obstacle depending on how creative you want to get with the physics.

You can brute-force your way through by stacking objects, or you can find an elegant shortcut that the developers clearly intended, or you can accidentally catapult yourself across the map and somehow end up exactly where you needed to be. Playing solo has its charm, but co-op is where this whole thing goes completely sideways. Watching your friends’ ragdoll bodies collide, tumble off edges, and drag each other down mid-climb creates moments you’ll be talking about for weeks. Someone will try to help you up a ledge and accidentally pull you both off a cliff. You can also dress your character in ridiculous outfits, which does absolutely nothing for gameplay but makes every failure 40% funnier to watch.

5. MOTORSLICE

Parkour through a giant abandoned structure with a chainsaw

MOTORSLICE blew up online before it even came out, partly because the devs kept posting short clips of the main character that went viral on YouTube. The whole setup is straightforward. You play as P, a young woman whose job title is literally “Slicer,” and she’s been sent into this colossal brutalist megastructure in the middle of a desert to destroy all the rogue machines living inside it. Her weapon is a chainsaw, and the structure itself is this enormous vertical maze of concrete, steel corridors, and liminal spaces that you have to parkour your way through.

Wall runs, pole swings, slides, vaulting, the movement toolkit is deep, but the signature mechanic is the motorslice itself, where P drives her chainsaw into certain golden metal surfaces and rides along them horizontally or vertically like a mechanized wall-run. Everything in this game can kill you in about one hit, and you can do the same to regular enemies, so the whole flow focuses more on reading your surroundings and reacting fast than on tanking damage. Each of the eight chapters ends with a colossal boss fight against a massive machine. So if you are specifically looking through the Xbox Game Pass platformers list for something fresh, MOTORSLICE should be on your checklist.

4. Planet of Lana II

Explore a hand-painted alien world with your creature companion to save your planet

The first Planet of Lana was a small side-scroller that people fell in love with because of how gorgeous it looked and how its story hit without using a single word of dialogue. The sequel picks up two years later on the same alien planet called Novo, where Lana and her cat-like companion Mui are pulled into a new journey after the machines from the first game left the world changed. Everything is told through animation, music, and environmental details, so you figure out the story yourself as you move through it.

If you played the original and wanted more depth, this delivers exactly that with a longer runtime and trickier challenges throughout. Lana is older and more capable this time around, with wall jumps, dashes, and underwater exploration added to her movement, which opens up the platforming significantly compared to the original. Mui can now hypnotize and briefly possess other creatures and machines in the environment, so you might take control of a fast-moving fish to leap through water. Stealth moments return from the original, and they require you to sneak past massive machines and hostile organisms using timing and environmental cover.

3. Super Meat Boy 3D

Die a thousand deaths jumping through razor-sharp obstacle courses, now in full 3D

Super Meat Boy has been punishing people for over a decade, and the franchise finally went full 3D with this entry. The original games were all about pixel-perfect jumps across deadly 2D stages, so seeing that formula translated into three dimensions felt like a huge gamble. It paid off, though the difficulty is absolutely merciless from the jump. You’re still a tiny slab of meat sliding and bouncing off walls, but now you’ve got depth to deal with, so misjudging a jump isn’t just a left-right problem anymore.

Saw blades come at you from angles you can’t always see until you’ve already committed to a leap, and lava pits sit just out of view behind corners. The wall-jumping feels ridiculously good once you get the hang of reading surfaces in 3D space, and there’s a rhythm to chaining jumps off multiple walls that clicks after enough deaths. Speedrunners are going to lose their minds with this entry because the third dimension opens up route optimization that the flat stages could never offer. The difficulty curve ramps aggressively after the first few worlds, and by the time you reach the dark world levels, you’ll be questioning your own sanity and completely unable to stop trying.

2. Hollow Knight: Silksong

The strongest action-platformer in the Xbox Game Pass library

Hollow Knight: Silksong finally showed up after what felt like forever, and yeah, it was worth the wait. The original Hollow Knight became this massive cult hit that people wouldn’t stop recommending, and the sequel shifts focus to Hornet, who you probably remember as that fast, aggressive boss from the first game. She’s the playable character now, and her movement is way quicker and more aerial than the Knight ever was, so the whole feel of combat and traversal changed dramatically.

Pharloom is the new kingdom you’re exploring, and it’s enormous! Bosses in this game hit different, like each one demands you understand Hornet’s tools and movement before you can scrape through, and the rush after finally beating one you’ve been stuck on is hard to describe. Backtracking with new abilities to reach spots you couldn’t get to earlier still feels satisfying every single time, and the map is designed so those moments happen organically as you explore. Lastly, the flow across the whole thing is rock solid, and Pharloom has enough variety in its regions to keep you curious about what’s behind the next passage or locked gate.

1. Denshattack!

The wildest new platformer you can grab on Xbox Game Pass today

So someone mashed together skateboarding games and trains, and the result is way better than it has any right to be. You play as Emi, who enters the world of Denshattack!, which is underground train battles across a version of Japan sealed under corporate domes. The whole thing plays like Tony Hawk except you’re on a full locomotive, drifting around corners, ollieing over obstacles, grinding pipelines, and pulling off kickflips mid-air with your train. And yes, that sounds absurd, but the second you nail your first chain of tricks off a ramp and land it clean on the next set of rails, the absurdity stops mattering and the dopamine takes over.

Every region you travel through introduces a new move to your toolkit, and the game teaches you gradually without dumping everything at once, so by the time you hit the later areas your fingers are pulling off combos you couldn’t have imagined in the first hour. Boss fights are especially wild because each one has a completely different gimmick, and I don’t want to spoil it more. Levels are split between score-chasing runs, races, multi-objective routes, and those boss encounters, so the variety keeps every format from getting stale. Denshattack! absolutely earned its number one rank here, and it’s the kind of game you’d recommend to everyone regardless of what they usually play.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I play these platformers with a friend on the couch?

It Takes Two is fully built for co-op and requires two players at all times, so you can jump in with a friend on the same console through split-screen. Human Fall Flat also supports local multiplayer alongside its online mode, which makes it a great pick for couch sessions. The rest of the games on this list are single-player experiences, but they’re equally worth your time if you typically game solo.

Do any of these games support keyboard and mouse on Xbox?

Human Fall Flat and Rain World both support keyboard and mouse input on Xbox, so you have that option if controllers aren’t your thing. For faster-paced entries like Denshattack! and Super Meat Boy 3D, a controller is strongly recommended because the precision you need during high-speed sections translates much better to analog sticks and triggers.

Which of these platformers can a beginner start with comfortably?

Human Fall Flat is the easiest entry point because the difficulty is very forgiving and the physics-based humor keeps everything lighthearted even when you fail. Planet of Lana II moves at a relaxed pace with puzzle-focused platforming that eases you in gently, so if you prefer something calmer, that’s your pick. On the flip side, Rain World and Super Meat Boy 3D are significantly more punishing, so save those for when you’ve built up some confidence.

Will these platforming games leave Xbox Game Pass at some point?

Yes, Xbox Game Pass rotates titles in and out of its library regularly, so any of these games could be removed in a future update. Microsoft (MSFT ) typically announces departures a couple of weeks ahead of time, which gives you a window to either finish the game or purchase it at a discount before it’s gone. Day-one launches like Denshattack! tend to stay longer, but there’s no permanent guarantee with any title on the service.

How long will it take me to finish the shorter games on this list?

Little Nightmares II runs about five to six hours for a standard playthrough, and Planet of Lana II falls in a similar range. Human Fall Flat can be completed in around eight hours solo, but co-op sessions tend to stretch that out because of the chaos that naturally unfolds. Another Crab’s Treasure and Hollow Knight: Silksong are the longer commitments here, with both capable of absorbing twenty to forty hours depending on how much you explore.

Are these games available on Xbox Game Pass PC or just console?

The majority of titles on this list are available across both Xbox console and PC through Game Pass, so you can play them on whichever platform suits you.

Which games on this list have the toughest difficulty?

Super Meat Boy 3D and Rain World are the two hardest entries here by a significant margin, and both will test your patience repeatedly before you see them through. Hollow Knight: Silksong sits right behind them with its boss fights and exploration-based challenges, especially in the late game. If you prefer a challenge but don’t want to be overwhelmed from the start, Another Crab’s Treasure balances its difficulty well because the shell-swapping system lets you adapt your approach to each encounter.

Can I use Xbox Cloud Gaming to play these on my phone or tablet?

Most Xbox Game Pass titles are available through Cloud Gaming, which means you can stream them directly to your phone, tablet, or browser without a console. Performance depends on your internet connection, and fast-paced games like Denshattack! or Super Meat Boy 3D may feel slightly less responsive due to input latency over streaming. For slower-paced titles like Planet of Lana II or Little Nightmares II, cloud play tends to feel smooth and comfortable.

Is Xbox Game Pass Ultimate required to access all ten of these games?

Standard Xbox Game Pass for console covers the majority of titles on this list as long as they’re in the current library rotation. Game Pass Ultimate bundles in additional perks like Cloud Gaming, EA Play, and PC access, but if you’re strictly playing on an Xbox console, the base tier gets you almost everything you need to try every game mentioned here.