Xbox Game Pass‘ presentation at The Game Awards 2025 gave gamers a have a look at a few of the more popular games which can be currently available on the platform without really touching on what the long run will hold, as not one of the games announced on the show appear to be guaranteed to look on the subscription service. Recent changes to Xbox Game Pass have brought each positive and negative reactions, though the latter heavily outnumber the previous, and neglecting to showcase any of its upcoming additions might be seen as an indication of inauspicious times ahead in 2026.
Since its introduction in 2017, Xbox Game Pass has been one in every of the larger selling points for Microsoft’s consoles, offering access to tons of of games for a monthly subscription fee. The service had an estimated 37 million users based on data from July, and it’s still a force to be reckoned with in 2025, as 15 games nominated for The Games Awards 2025 are currently available on Game Pass.
Upcoming Games for Game Pass
- Aphelion
- Armatus
- At Fate’s End
- Awaysis
- Beast of Reincarnation
- Beastro
- Clockwork Revolution
- Crowsworn
- Darkwood 2
- Denshattack!
- Echo Generation 2
- Erosion
- Fable
- Forza Horizon 6
- Freestyle Football 2
- Gear of War: E-Day
- High on Life 2
- Menace
- MIO: Memories in Orbit
- Mixtape
- Nirvana Noir
- Nova Roma
- Outbound
- Persona 4 Revival
- Planet of Lana 2: Children of the Leaf
- Raji: Kaliyuga
- Replaced
- Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy
- Roadside Research
- Sledding Game
- Sleight of Hand
- Snap & Grab
- Subnautica 2
- Super Meat Boy 3D
- TCG Card Shop Simulator
- There Are Not Ghosts At The Grand
- Tropico 7
- Vampire Crawlers
- Vapor World
- Wildekin
- Witchbrook
Starting nearly an hour into The Game Awards 2025’s fundamental show, a two-minute-long hype reel for Xbox Game Pass showcased multiple games on the subscription service. Played over Johnny Money’s “(Ghost) Riders within the Sky,” the hype reel follows a cleansing custodian as he makes his rounds through several rooms labeled with the names of top titles, stepping into hijinks like unintentionally disabling the factitious gravity on a starship in The Outer Worlds 2, shaking dirt blocks off him broom outside Minecraft, and holding up a still-moving zombie hand to wave to a colleague in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. There are many other references, including a general one for the Fallout franchise, which incorporates a version of the cowboy song utilized in the video on Fallout 76‘s soundtrack.
But other than that video, Xbox Game Pass wasn’t mentioned much in the course of the show, which might be troubling to some subscribers. Moreover, while the hype reel showcased some featured games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that were released as day-one games on Game Pass, only a few of the particular games listed were created under brands owned by Microsoft, showing the service’s dependence on the cooperation of third-party developers and publishers. There’s an allusion to Grounded 2, which is out in early access and being developed by Microsoft-owned studio Obsidian Entertainment, and while Microsoft acquired Bethesda in 2021, that was well after its release of Fallout 4 in 2015 and Fallout 76 in 2018.
While a wealth of games has been added to Xbox Game Pass in 2025, there are some indicators that would suggest a troubled road ahead. The subscription service has been getting plenty of negative reactions from fans ever since an early October announcement that the worth of an Xbox Game Pass subscription can be increasing, with monthly fees for the Ultimate tier jumping up roughly 50 percent to $29.99. While the announcement got here alongside the arrival of access to shut to 50 recent games, a lot of which were acquired through a partnership with Ubisoft+, fans were outraged by what they perceived as greedy actions in a time of economic hardship, and multiple sources have reported that the pricing change resulted in a slew of subscription cancellations.
The dearth of presence at The Game Awards aside, there are roughly 40 games which have already been announced for addition to Game Pass in 2026. These include two day-one games recently confirmed for Game Pass Ultimate in January, with MIO: Memories In Orbit arriving January 20 and Nova Roma coming on January 22, although that second title will likely be available exclusively available on PC. Other big games subscribers can stay up for in 2026 include Fable, the Halo 1 remake, Forza Horizon 6, and Gears of War: E-Day.