Xbox Games with Gold October 2016 free games: four high-rated, award-winning titles for gamers

A screenshot of "Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings," one of the free games for Xbox Games with Gold October 2016Steam

Microsoft has officially announced four new free games coming to Xbox Games with Gold for the month of October. As usual, there will be two for the Xbox One and the other two will be for the Xbox 360.

Users of the current-generation console will get to download for free the arcade baseball simulator "Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings" for the whole month of October, allowing them to save $20.

Hailed as Polygon's 2014 Sports Game of the Year, this Xbox Games with Gold freebie for October offers players the definitive baseball experience presented in a light-hearted manner.

The second title coming to Xbox One next month via the Games with Gold free games promotion is the well-received top-down strategy role-playing video game "The Escapists."

The game, which will be free to download from Oct. 16 to Nov. 15, saving subscribers another $20, is described as "a light-hearted insight into everyday prison life."

Here, players attempt to escape by "[going] about their daily duties clandestinely secreting useful objects from under their captors' noses" and whipping up innocuous items that can help them break out without raising the suspicion of the prison guards.

For Xbox 360 players subscribed to the Xbox Games with Gold service, the month of October gifts them with the off-road racer "MX vs. ATV Reflex" and the post-apocalyptic survival adventure game "I Am Alive."

The former, regularly priced at $29.99 and will be available for free download during the first half of October, will challenge players to perform "death-defying tricks and high-flying freestyle action."

Meanwhile, the latter, available from Oct. 16 to Oct. 31, brings players to a "believable, dark and insecure" future where the human race is no more, In the game, they will play the role of the lone survivor who fights to reunite with his family.

While waiting for the Xbox Games with Gold free games for October, subscribers should take advantage of the remaining days of September to download "Mirror's Edge" for the Xbox 360 up to the end of the month, and "Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China" available for free on Xbox One until Oct. 15.