It’s always a sad day when Game Pass games reach the end of their contracts and eject out of the service, but TEN games leaving today? That’s enough to leave a mark.
Deep breath: today, we see the departure of Elite Dangerous (Cloud and Console), Hades (Cloud, Console, and PC), Myst (Cloud, Console, and PC), NBA 2K22 (Cloud and Console), Signs of the Sojourner (Cloud, Console, and PC), Spiritfarer (Cloud, Console, and PC), Twelve Minutes (Cloud, Console, and PC), Two Point Hospital (Cloud, Console, and PC), What Remains of Edith Finch (Cloud, Console, and PC) and World War Z (Cloud, Console, and PC).
Where do you even start in terms of pulling out highlights (or, in this case, lowlights)?
We suspect that one of the most missed will be Elite Dangerous. Reassuringly ensconced on Game Pass for eons, it may not have crossed the minds of Game Pass players that Elite Dangerous might leave. It is, after all, a game from Frontier, one of Xbox’s most reliable and long-term partners. Well, stash your docking computers, because Elite Dangerous has indeed left the service today.
Another biggie is Hades. This masterful roguelike arrived late on Xbox and Game Pass, having won over PC and Switch players for some time, but it blew us away when it finally graced us with its presence. Its organic, flowing combat systems hugged up tightly to its deep, involving progression systems to make one of the most more-ish games that the Xbox has seen. Well, it’s moreish no longer, as you will have to purchase it from the Xbox Store if you want to play it.
Fs in the chat for Two Point Hospital, too. It may have been superseded, in a way, by Two Point Campus, but this glorious homage to Theme Hospital is still absolutely worth playing. Welcome ludicrous illnesses into your private hospital, and build equally ludicrous contraptions to treat them. We gave it 4.5/5, saying “I don’t often recommend frequent visits to a hospital, but Two Point Hospital on Xbox One is one which you must get admitted to at the soonest opportunity. It’ll be your new addiction.”. Except don’t get addicted, because you have to pay for it now.
See, we’ve reached the end of the article and not even recommended Spiritfarer or What Remains of Edith Finch. It is clearly a sad day when two masterpieces don’t even get their own paragraph. They’re still available on the Xbox Store, but that’s not the point, damn it.
Expect announcements from Xbox on the Game Pass games for September in the coming days, but be safe in the knowledge that as these ten leave, we did at least get a decent smattering of newbies arrive yesterday. For now, let us know which of today’s leavers is tugging on your ear ducts. Cry in the comments or on our social channels.
