Xbox Game Pass‘ presentation at The Game Awards 2025 gave gamers a look at some of the more popular games that are currently available on the platform without really touching on what the future will hold, as none of the games announced at the show seem to be guaranteed to appear on the subscription service. Recent changes to Xbox Game Pass have brought both positive and negative reactions, though the latter heavily outnumber the former, and neglecting to showcase any of its upcoming additions could be seen as a sign of difficult times ahead in 2026.
Since its introduction in 2017, Xbox Game Pass has been one of the bigger selling points for Microsoft’s consoles, offering access to hundreds 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.
The 4 Biggest Xbox Game Pass Games of 2026 Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg
Four huge Xbox Game Pass games are already on deck for 2026, with many more games expected to join the service next year as well.
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 main show, a two-minute-long hype reel for Xbox Game Pass showcased multiple games on the subscription service. Played over Johnny Cash’s “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky,” the hype reel follows a cleaning custodian as he makes his rounds through several rooms labeled with the names of top titles, getting into hijinks like accidentally disabling the artificial 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 plenty of other references, including a general one for the Fallout franchise, which includes a version of the cowboy song used in the video on Fallout 76‘s soundtrack.
But aside from that video, Xbox Game Pass wasn’t mentioned much during the show, which could be troubling to some subscribers. Additionally, while the hype reel showcased some featured games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that were released as day-one games on Game Pass, very few of the specific games listed were created under brands owned by Microsoft, showing the service’s dependence on the cooperation of third-party developers and publishers. There is 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 could suggest a troubled road ahead. The subscription service has been getting a lot of negative reactions from fans ever since an early October announcement that the price of an Xbox Game Pass subscription would be increasing, with monthly fees for the Ultimate tier jumping up roughly 50 percent to $29.99. While the announcement came alongside the arrival of access to close to 50 new games, many 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 lack of presence at The Game Awards aside, there are roughly 40 games that 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 be available exclusively available on PC. Other big games subscribers can look forward to in 2026 include Fable, the Halo 1 remake, Forza Horizon 6, and Gears of War: E-Day.
