Xbox Kept At Least One Big Promise In Its Most Tumultuous Year Ever

February 2026: 7 Games Added

1. Menace
2. Relooted
3. Blazblue Entropy Effect X
4. Starsand Island
5. High On Life 2
6. Aerial Knights’ Drop Shot
7. Dice A Million

In what was an otherwise standard month for Xbox Game Pass, some earth-shattering changes were made at Xbox. Phil Spencer, who had led the Microsoft division since 2014, stepped down as CEO of Microsoft Gaming and was replaced by Asha Sharma. Sarah Bond, an executive closely tied to Xbox’s multiplatform strategy, also exited the company. At the time, Sharma wrote in a Microsoft Blog post that she wanted to “recommit to our core Xbox fans and players, those who have invested with us for the past 25 years,” leaving us wondering when, not if, big changes would come to Xbox.

March 2026: 3 Games Added

1. Planet of Lana II
2. Nova Roma
3. Super Meat Boy 3D

Outside of an Xbox Partner Preview showcase highlighting third-party games, March was pretty quiet on the Xbox Game Pass front. Sharma made a big splash immediately after taking over by announcing Project Helix, Xbox’s next-gen console. The controversial “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign, which deemphasized consoles, was also sunset at Sharma’s direction. While component shortages mean we still don’t know much about Project Helix, this month gave us our first indication of what Xbox’s recommitment to itself was.

April 2026: 9 Games Added

1. Replaced
2. Aphelion
3. Vampire Crawlers
4. Kiln
5. Hades 2
6. inKonbini
7. Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era
8. Terratech Legion
9. Sledding Game

This was the best month for Game Pass yet in 2026, headlined by Double Fine’s multiplayer game Kiln. This would go on to be the last game released by Double Fine under Xbox ownership. A report from The Verge also revealed that Sharma held a meeting where she teased big changes to come at Xbox, telling employees that they “have to fix the fundamentals on console and PC.” We would see how that played out over the next couple of months.

May 2026: 11 Games Added

1. Mixtape
2. Motorslice
3. Forza Horizon 6
4. Outbound
5. Black Jacket
6. Call of the Elder Gods
7. Subnautica 2
8. Luna Abyss
9. Echo Generation 2
10. Crashout Crew
11. Kabuto Park

May 2026 was the most chaotic month for Game Pass within the past year. In terms of games, Forza Horizon 6 and Subnautica 2 both had very successful launches, while Mixtape was met with critical acclaim. More importantly, Xbox also made some important changes to Game Pass by backing off its commitment to adding Call of Duty games to the service on day one. In turn, it also brought the monthly price of Ultimate down from $30 to $23 (still higher than before the previous price increase).

“Our players cover a wide breadth of geographies, preferences, and tastes, so while there isn’t a single model that’s best for everyone, this change responds to a lot of feedback we’ve gotten so far. We’ll continue to listen and learn,” the Xbox Wire announcement for this explains. No mention of the 75+ game commitment was made in that post.

June 2026: 6 Games Added

1. Frog Sqwad
2. Solarpunk
3. Beatdown City Survivors
4. Beastro
5. Junkster
6. Starseeker: Astroneer Expedition

While June was as milquetoast a month as it could be in terms of new Game Pass titles, it was full of massive ups and downs for Xbox. A showcase was held during Summer Game Fest that celebrated Xbox and confirmed a recommitment to Xbox console exclusives with Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution. At the time, Xbox admitted it had lost “millions” of Game Pass subscribers since the October price increase and had only recently begun to regain them after the price decrease in May. 

Then, almost as soon as Summer Game Fest ended, an Xbox Wire post from Sharma explained that Xbox needed to “reset the business” due to a low “accountability margin,” the hardware-component crisis, and being “over extended” with the number of studios it owns. This sparked lots of speculation and rumors about layoffs, studios being shut down or spun off, and Game Pass investment disappearing for third-party studios. It was a preview for what was to come in July.

July 2026: 8 Games Added

1. Ascend to Zero
2. Wuthering Waves
3. Denshattack
4. Shift at Midnight
5. Tears of Metal
6. Halo: Campaign Evolved 
7. Corsair Cover
8. Mistfall Hunter

Halo: Campaign Evolved, a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, was not nearly enough to take attention away from all of the shocking moves Xbox made in July. Xbox announced plans to cut 3,200 jobs over the next fiscal year, sold off Ninja Theory and Undead Labs, and spun off Double Fine and Compulsion Games as independent studios. 

As for where Game Pass fits in all of this, Sharma admitted that Game Pass and other parts of the Xbox business “did not grow at the pace we expected.” Bloomberg revealed that Xbox had been spending over $1 billion a year on Game Pass-related deals. While Xbox is still committed to Xbox Game Pass, this month made it clear that the plan to center the entire Xbox business around the subscription service truly didn’t pan out as intended. 

August 2026: 4 Games Added

1. Beast of Reincarnation
2. Sandustry
3. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy
4. Blood Dungeon

As of this month, we’re still dealing with the fallout of Xbox’s July layoffs. Both Compulsion and Double Fine have reestablished themselves as independent studios and regained publishing rights to their games, although those titles remain on Xbox’s subscription service for now. Beast of Reincarnation and Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy are some of the bigger day-one releases of the year for Game Pass, although Beast of Reincarnation did not garner fantastic reviews. 

September 2026: At least 4 Games will be added

1. Minecraft Dungeons 2
2. Dune: Awakening 
3. Forever Ago
4. Speedrunners 2

Right now, four day-one additions are slated for Game Pass Ultimate. These games will affirm the “over” part of the “over 75 day-one releases” promise that Xbox made last year. As of August 2026, we know that at least 78 games will have been added to Game Pass Ultimate on day one between October 2025 and September 2026.

Xbox has not made any particularly bold proclamations about the subscription service or its future at Gamescom. It has also neither posted online to boast that it surpassed the 75-game milestone nor publicly committed to delivering over 75 day-one releases on Game Pass Ultimate per year beyond 2026. A source tells GameSpot that the company plans to continue bringing day-one games to the subscription service, though.

A lot has changed at Xbox over the past year, as everything from Xbox Game Studios’ developer count to the price and offerings of Game Pass Ultimate looks very different from just one year ago. Still, in a year full of mayhem for Xbox as a company, it managed to deliver on a Game Pass promise made before all of this chaos ensued.