Summary
Microsoft has announced the second wave of theXbox Game Passlineup for November 2024, which includes six titles in total. However, two of those are already available on the service and are now only set to reach the Standard edition ofXbox Game Pass.
The popular subscription service has added six new titles since the start of November. The latest member of this group has just landed onXbox Game Pass Ultimate in the form ofMicrosoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Shortly beforeMFS 2024became available to play at 8am PT on November 19, Microsoft announced the second wave of this month’s Xbox Game Pass lineup. Alongside the newly released flight sim, the upcoming titles includeLittle Kitty, Big City,PlateUp,STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl,Nine Sols, andAliens: Dark Descent. Out of this group,PlateUpandLittle Kitty, Big Cityhave already been available on Xbox Game Passsince February and May 2024, respectively. However, they weren’t part of the XGP Standard library introduced as part of the XGP tier revamp over the summer, and are only now being added to it, hence their inclusion in this newly announced roster.
Available on PC GP and XGP Ultimate since May 2024.
Available on PC GP and XGP Ultimate since Feb 2024.
Cloud, Console, PC
November 2024: The Second-Weakest Month for Game Pass Releases
The only member of this Wave 2 lineup whose arrival wasn’t already announced in advance isAliens: Dark Descent. The fact that one-third of the roster consists of XGP Standard releases highlights aworrying trend that Xbox Game Pass has started in November 2024: heavily padding upcoming release lists with titles already available on the service’s higher tiers. In reality, once all is said and done, the XGP library will have added only nine new games over the course of November—barring any surprise launches. This would make November the second-weakest month of 2024 in terms of truly new XGP releases, only above August, which saw just six additions.
One silver lining is that the new games in this month’s Wave 2 roster are mostly critically acclaimed or highly anticipated releases, such asSTALKER 2: Heart of ChornobylandNine Sols. This suggests Microsoft may be shifting its focus to quality over quantity moving forward.
Xbox Game Pass Library Has Been Shrinking Since Summer 2024
Be that as it may, withseven titles leaving Xbox Game Pass on November 15and over half a dozen more being set to join them on the 30th, this month is on course to become yet another net negative for the service. The last time that the XGP library received more games than it lost over the course of a single month was back in July 2024, when it added 12 titles while removing nine others.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the highest tier of Microsoft’s flagship game subscription service that offers over 100 game titles that you can play with a single purchase, making it one of the most outstanding value propositions of the Xbox ecosystem to date.
