Six games will leave Xbox Game Pass for console at the end of the month, including the Xbox Game Studios title Halo Wars: Definitive Edition. The five others game leaving the catalog very soon include Doom, Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition, Grip, The Escapists, and Thief of Thieves: Season One,
The removal of Halo Wars: Definitive Edition is a bit surprising as Halo remains one of Microsoft’s biggest game franchises along with Minecraft, Forza, and Gears of War. Moreover, it seems to contradict a tweet from Major Nelson saying in January 2018 that “the Xbox One Exclusives will be a permanent part of game pass moving forward.”
In other words: the Xbox One Exclusives will be a permanent part of game pass moving forward. https://t.co/QE5V7O5toI
— Larry Hryb ????✨ (@majornelson) January 24, 2018
We’re not sure if this statement should have been interpreted as “we’ll always have some exclusives,” rather than “all exclusives will always be available.” Anyway, we’ve reached out to Microsoft to get more details and we’ll let you know if we hear anything back.
Seeing high-profile Xbox Game Studios titles rotating out of the catalog may be disappointing for some, but Microsoft wouldn’t be the only one to do it: Sony’s competing PlayStation Now service recently received new first-party games such as Uncharted 4 and God of War, but these games will only stay in the catalog for three months. To compare, Halo Wars: Definition joined Xbox Game Pass on November 2017, so it has been available for almost two years as of today.
Update 10:20 AM PDT: The Xbox Game Pass Twitter account says that Halo Wars: DE and DOOM were added to the “Leaving Soon” section by mistake. Both games aren’t leaving the Xbox Game Pass catalog, and the Leaving Soon section will be updated shortly to reflect this.
Halo Wars and Doom are not leaving our library at this time. The "Leaving Soon" section will soon be updated with the correct info pic.twitter.com/Jn00H48WF1
— Xbox Game Pass (@XboxGamePass) October 16, 2019
Update 12:10PM PDT: We’ve received the following statement from a Microsoft spokesperson confirming that Xbox Game Studios titles should remain in the Xbox Game Pass catalog going forward.
We’re aware that ‘DOOM’ and ‘Halo Wars’ were displayed as leaving the Xbox Game Pass library soon and can confirm this was in error. While we regularly update the library with new titles available, and sometimes titles leaving, both titles will continue to be available for Xbox Game Pass members. As we’ve stated before, it’s our intent to have Xbox Game Studios titles available as a regular part of the value of being an Xbox Game Pass member.
