Stealth, Badass Vampires and Stealthy Badass Vampires Headline December’s Games With Gold

We've already seen PlayStation's crop of free PS Plus titles this December. It was average-to-middling, frankly. Sure, retro heads like me will be all over the Gauntlet reboot, and the five people worldwide who own Vitas could do much worse than the Monster Hunter-esque Freedom Wars, but otherwise… it's nothing to foul your undercrackers about.

Today, we're taking a look at what's on offer down Microsoft way. Will December's Games With Gold fare any better?

The Xbox Wire boasts that Gold members have gotten themselves over $1000 of free games this year, and they're going to close out 2015 with something really special. Which sounds pretty damn good to me. Let's take a closer ogle.

Xbox One will play host to The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, an action RPG with an involving story and a focus on mutant-manglin' combat. It'll be joined by Thief, a modern take on the classic stealth ‘em up series. The first will be available all through December, while Thief will be up for download from December 16 to January 15.

On Xbox 360 (and the One, via the terrifying new voodoo that is backward compatibility), you can get yourself toontastic tower defense title Castlestorm. There's also the fantasy co-op hack and slash adventure Sacred 3. Castlestorm is available from December 1 to 15, and Sacred 3 from December 16 to 31.

What was this incredible special extra hinted at earlier? An additional game, that's what. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising also hits 360 the second half of the month. Check out the whole lineup in action below, courtesy of IGN: