Microsoft has announced that, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Xbox brand, players who buy a select Windows 11 PC will get a digital bundle of 25 games worth over $500, and Minecraft Dungeons is among the confirmed titles. The news was published on October 15, 2026 on the official Windows Experience blog, and the promotion will cover purchases made between November 2 and December 31, 2026 from participating retailers in the United States.

How to claim the game bundle

According to Microsoft, customers need to buy an eligible Windows 11 PC, activate it, and claim the bundle in the Microsoft Store app, which will offer the option by November 30, 2026 at the latest. You have until February 12, 2027 to finish activation and formally add the games to your Microsoft account.

The titles are permanently tied to your account, so you can play them on any compatible Windows PC, and selected games also run on Xbox Series X and S thanks to Xbox Play Anywhere. Microsoft notes that "not all devices eligible for this offer support all 25 games," that the bundle is digital only, and that some titles have age restrictions.

Minecraft Dungeons as one of the headline games

Besides Minecraft Dungeons, the official list includes The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, and Gears of War: Reloaded. Microsoft hasn't named the other twenty titles, saying only that the whole collection is worth over $500.

Minecraft Dungeons is a co-op action dungeon crawler for up to four players, where instead of mining and crafting it's all about fighting waves of mobs in procedurally generated levels, as described on the official Minecraft Dungeons website. The game runs on PC, consoles and in the cloud, and its variety of enemies, from zombies to bosses, makes it a natural pick for promoting Windows hardware to fans of the series, who still often turn to the mob overview on the Minecraft wiki as their main reference.

25 years of Xbox behind the promotion

Xbox launched in the United States on November 15, 2001, so the round anniversary lands right in the middle of November 2026. Microsoft has stretched the celebrations across the whole year: it kicked off an Xbox FanFest event tour through Cologne, Tokyo, London, Mexico City and Sydney, announced a limited-edition console and controller styled after the original Xbox, and revealed work on the next generation of hardware under a project called Project Helix.

The 25-game bundle fits into that strategy as a selling point for holiday PC purchases, and Minecraft Dungeons being included confirms that Microsoft still treats Minecraft-related brands as one of its key marketing tools for promoting its own hardware and the Windows ecosystem.

What this means for players in Poland

The promotion is limited to participating retailers in the US, so players in Poland won't be able to take advantage of it when buying a new PC. If you want to play Minecraft Dungeons, you'll still have to buy the game yourself, just like with other titles available in the site's downloads section.

It's worth adding that the promotion comes at a time when Microsoft is surveying Xbox Insider users about how they feel about more console exclusivity for its biggest brands, Minecraft included, as reported by My Nintendo News, among others. That's a separate topic from the free game collection itself, but it shows that Minecraft Dungeons and the whole Minecraft brand are playing a growing role in Microsoft's plans around hardware and future versions of the game on different platforms.

What's next for the promotion

For now, the nearest date to remember is November 30, 2026, when the option to claim the bundle becomes available in the Microsoft Store app on eligible devices. The final window to activate and confirm the full collection of 25 games closes on February 12, 2027, and Microsoft hasn't yet said whether a similar campaign will reach beyond the US market.

Sources