I still keep a mental scrapbook of the monthly Games with Gold drops, and April 2020 is one of those pages that makes me smile and wince at the same time. Back then, Xbox Live Gold was the gatekeeper for online play, and every month Microsoft slid four free games across the table like a dealer who wanted to keep the table happy. In 2026, that table looks very different: Xbox Live Gold has become Game Pass Core, and the old Games with Gold ritual is a museum piece. But if I close my eyes, I can still see the April 2020 lineup glowing on my dashboard.

The leak had already spoiled part of the surprise. Project Cars 2 and Fable Anniversary were rumored, and when the official list arrived, the rumor turned out to be spot-on. Here is how the month broke down:

According to Major Nelson's post, the total value of the April 2020 Games with Gold was $132.46. That number sounded generous on paper, but value is a funny thing. A game can be worth $30 and still sit in your library like a forgotten umbrella. And hey, free is free, right? Except when it is not quite free from redundancy.

Look, I get it. Project Cars 2 earned strong reviews when it launched. It is a beautiful, demanding racing game. But man, two racing games in one month? Pairing it with Toy Box Turbos meant April 2020 had two racing games in the same basket. If you were not into racing or sports games, the month probably felt like a pit stop you did not ask for. Fable Anniversary, on the other hand, was a first-party Xbox game, which usually means instant appeal. Yet it was already available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate includes the same benefits as Xbox Live Gold, so for Ultimate members, Fable Anniversary was less a gift and more a duplicate key to a door they already owned.

That redundancy was a sign of things to come. Game Pass was the cool older sibling, and Games with Gold was starting to feel like a hand-me-down. As Game Pass grew, more crossover games appeared, and the monthly Gold drops began to look like an afterthought. In 2026, we know how that story ended: Xbox Live Gold became Game Pass Core, and the monthly Games with Gold program was phased out. The Xbox Series X era pushed Microsoft even harder toward a subscription-first future. So looking back, April 2020 feels like a snapshot of the exact moment the old model started to creak.

Still, I do not want to be too cynical. There was real fun in that April 2020 batch. Knights of Pen and Paper Bundle was a lovely surprise, a game that understood the joy of tabletop role-playing without requiring me to find four friends and a free Tuesday. Toy Box Turbos was the kind of small, silly arcade racer that I could play for ten minutes and feel like a kid again. And Fable Anniversary? I downloaded it just to hear that music, to walk through Oakvale one more time, to remember why I fell in love with Albion in the first place.

For anyone who was disappointed by April 2020, there was still time to claim the March 2020 Games with Gold. Batman: The Enemy Within – The Complete Season and Sonic Generations were available until April 1, while Shantae: Half-Genie Hero stayed claimable until April 15. That little overlap was a nice safety net. If the April lineup was not your flavor, March still had a Bat-shaped narrative adventure and a blue blur with attitude. I know I grabbed Shantae before the window closed, and I am glad I did.

Would I trade April 2020 for a modern Game Pass Core catalog? That is a tricky question. Game Pass Core offers a curated library, not a monthly claim race, and in 2026 it is the baseline for online multiplayer. It is cleaner, more predictable, and arguably a better deal for most people. But the old Games with Gold had a chaotic charm. It was a monthly mystery box: sometimes you got a gem, sometimes you got a duplicate, and sometimes you got two racing games and a shrug. I miss that specific kind of surprise, even if I do not miss the clutter.

So here is my final lap. April 2020 was not the best month for Games with Gold, but it was a revealing one. It showed the tension between first-party value and subscription overlap, between racing fans and everyone else, between the past and the future. In 2026, that future has arrived, and the old program is a relic. But relics can still be fun to dust off. I will leave the rest to your memory, because some things are better left in 2020 — and some things are worth a replay.