A photography game starring a cartoon dog might be the best thing hitting Xbox Game Pass this month. Bluey’s Happy Snaps, the long-awaited follow-up to 2023’s Bluey: The Video Game, arrives as a day-one release on October 15, 2026, and subscribers on both console and PC get it at no extra cost.
That’s the pitch, and it’s a good one. Game Pass has spent years assembling one of the strongest libraries in gaming, the kind of curation that takes exorbitant expenses and costly measures to build even a sliver of. That spending has come with catastrophic consequences of its own, and Xbox is now busy reconfiguring its entire identity amid a historic restructuring of the industry. But the games keep coming, and if you’re already paying for the service, you might as well squeeze all the enjoyment out of it you can.
October’s full lineup is varied and vast. Some of it, like Battlefield 6, consists of existing games finding a new home (and, hopefully, an audience) on the platform. A handful of others are brand-new day-one releases Microsoft paid a premium to secure, and anyone with Game Pass Ultimate plays those completely free. That includes the dog with the camera.
The first game had one big flaw
The original Bluey: The Video Game landed in 2023 as a faithful, well-received adaptation of the smash-hit animated show. It let kids and fans wander around inside the show’s colorful universe and chat with its cast of characters, and for a while, that was enough.
Then it just ended. The game ran short, which proved a frustrating wrinkle given its rather high price.
A new studio behind the camera
Bluey’s Happy Snaps is a spiritual sequel of sorts, and it isn’t touching the first game’s developer. Instead, Australian studio Gameloft Brisbane is developing and publishing it, promising a richer, more detailed experience with a better shot at appealing to the whole family.
The gameplay borrows from Pokémon Snap. You explore open environments as Bluey, take photographs, and add them to a scrapbook. The visuals are delightful, and the easter eggs, characters, and locales you’d expect are all in there. Crucially, the whole thing works offline with zero microtransactions, and you can play solo or hand a controller to a friend, who plays as Bingo.
It’s good to see the legendary show keep getting video game adaptations, if only to expand on the deeply rewarding and educational experience it offers. For anyone who has been waiting on a proper follow-up to 2023’s adaptation, this is the Xbox Game Pass game for you.
October 15 is the date. Give the second controller to a kid, let them be Bingo, and start filling that scrapbook.
