It’s a bit of a Game Pass exodus today, as several games reach the end of their contracts with Microsoft and quietly abscond into the night. At least we have all those Game Pass announcements from Summer Game Fest to keep us warm.
The full list of leavers is as follows: Darkest Dungeon (Cloud, Console, and PC), Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance (Cloud, Console, and PC), Greedfall (Cloud, Console, and PC), Limbo (Cloud, Console, and PC) and the highly disappointing Worms Rumble (Cloud, Console, and PC).
Our highlight of those leaving is Limbo. Sure, it’s reaching a doddery old age and virtually everyone has it free from some service, there’s a reason it’s so ubiquitous. It’s a masterpiece of an indie title, somehow making a monochromatic platformer into one of the most heart-wrenching and isolating of experiences. We advise you pick it up cheap if you’ve never been emotionally hung, drawn and quartered by it in the past.
There’s also a fair amount of RPG goodness going out of the door. Last year’s re-release of Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is taking leave, and we had some reasonably warm feelings about it in our 3.5/5 review: “Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance doesn’t ever feel like it is doing anything particularly new and the whole setting, concept, and world just seems a bit tired at times. But that said you’ll have some decent fun here, particularly with the story, the hack and slash gameplay, and solid mechanics”.
Also in the RPG camp is the superb, if slightly masochistic Darkest Dungeon, which is bordering on a must-play. Greedfall, the open world privateer game also leaves, which is a shame as it sat about midway down our own personal gaming backlog. Our reviewer had a lot of fun with it, tossing a ⅘ it’s way in review and saying “I have loved spending time in the world of Greedfall. The game narrative is complex, interesting and brilliantly layered.”
The only other game we haven’t mentioned is Worms Rumble. In our humble opinion, the less said about this one, the better. A fumble from Team17, it had the Worms jumping aboard the battle royale bandwagon and adopting a 3D viewpoint, which vastly misjudged the joys of the little annelids.
All that remains to be said is that tomorrow sees the arrival of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, which should be some sort of public service announcement. This is a return to Turtles side-scrolling beat’em-ups, so get some friends and a large pepperoni in for that one.
More Game Pass announcements for June are due to follow in the next few days. We will keep you posted when they arrive. What we do know is that there is the arrival of Shadowrun Trilogy on June 21st (Console, PC), Naraka Bladepoint on June 23rd (Console, PC) and Escape Academy on June 28th (Console). Expect that list to get bolstered.
Which of these chunky RPGs are you going to miss the most? Let us know in the comments or on our social channels.
