Last month saw a bit of a shift with the way Xbox Live's Games with Gold program offers games. During the program's first two years, Xbox One owners only had one free game offered to them, while the Xbox  360 community got two. This wouldn't have been much of an issue if the lone Xbox One game was of a certain quality, but it often paled in comparison to what last-gen players could get their hands on.

Fortunately, as of July, Microsoft has increased the amount of games Xbox One Gold members get each month, and now offers two free Xbox One games in addition to two for the Xbox 360. It's still not as much as what PlayStation plus members get each month, but the differences between the two programs is what leads to healthy competition. Perhaps, eventually, Microsoft will decide to offer even more games as part of Games with Gold.

Until then, however, there's September's free Xbox Live games to hold its community over, and hopefully provide some casual distractions after school or work. Between The Deer God and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition on the Xbox One, it's a pretty safe bet that at least one of them will be a nice distraction from homework.

The Deer God is this month's indie title, and puts players in the role of a hunter that, for one reason or another, has switched bodies with a deer. This procedurally generated platformer is sure to offer a different experience each time it's played, and its themes of reincarnation, karma, and life will probably make it stand out from the rest of September's games; it'll be free throughout the entire month.

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition is the complete version of the rebooted origin story for Lara Croft. The game initially came out in 2013, but with Rise of the Tomb Raider due out in a couple of months, the Definitive Edition will serve as a nice refresher before heading into the sequel. The game will be free from September 15th to October 15th (taking a cue from July's So Many Me), so expect to hear about it once again when October's Games with Gold are revealed.

Shifting gears to the Xbox 360, Battlestations: Pacific will be up for grabs from September 1st to the 15th to satisfy anyone with a World War II itch. Following that, from the 16th to the end of the month, will be Crysis 3, which is set in a time that's radically different from the WWII era, and has even more dangerous weapons and equipment.

Similar to how Sony continues to offer free games to PS3 owners, Microsoft keeps supporting their incredibly successful Xbox 360. Of course, with the PS4 and Xbox One slowly but surely edging their predecessors out of the spotlight, many of the older consoles have more than likely been boxed up and put away. Normally, this would mean that playing Xbox 360 games would be difficult to do, but Microsoft wants to keep that library of games going with backward compatibility.

The feature currently supports a small amount of games, but the list is quickly expanding. And come November, when Xbox One's backward compatibility feature officially launches, all future Xbox 360 Games with Gold titles will be playable on the console. So maybe download every game Microsoft offers going forward, seeing as how they'll be playable regardless of which Xbox you're using. Besides, as the company said while detailing this month's games, this means "Xbox Live Gold members will get even more free games to play each month on Xbox One."

Source: Xbox Wire