An Xbox 360 game has been made free over on the Microsoft Store, and if you were playing the Xbox 360 at launch in 2005, it may look quite familiar and that’s because it was one of the console’s launch exclusives. Now, it’s free via Xbox Live and can be enjoyed by anyone on Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X as there is no Xbox Live Gold requirement. How long it will be free for, we don’t know. In other words, at the moment of publishing it’s free, but this may have changed by the time you’re reading this.
Developed by Carbonated Games and published by Microsoft Studios, Hexic, a tile-matching game, debuted back in 2003 via the PC and the PC only. Two years later when the Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2022, it came to the Xbox console as a console exclusive right at launch. Upon release, the game garnered a 79 on Metacritic. To this day, the game has never come to other console platforms, and it probably won’t considering it was published by Xbox, who presumably maintains the publishing rights to the game. As for why it’s free, we don’t know.
“Create clusters of same-colored tiles to clear them from the board. Sounds simple, right? The real fun of Hexic is in creating special patterns to earn special pieces,” reads an official pitch of the game. “Create a flower to earn a starflower piece. Use starflower pieces to make another flower and earn the elusive black pearl. Make a cluster or flower out of black pearls to win the game. Are you up for the challenge?
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