Xbox Game Pass Opens August With 12 Games, and the Gears of War: E-Day Beta Is the Real Headliner

Game Pass waves usually sort themselves into one big headliner and a pile of filler, and this one is refreshingly hard to sort. Microsoft announced the first August drop on Xbox Wire, and it is twelve games spread between August 4 and August 18, with the biggest draw not technically being a Game Pass game at all. The Gears of War: E-Day Early Access Open Beta starts August 6, and Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers are in without a pre-order. If you want the full breakdown of the beta and the new 12-player Horde Siege mode, we covered the E-Day multiplayer reveal when The Coalition showed it last week.

The wave itself opened on August 4 with Heretic + Hexen, the revived id classics, alongside Game Freak's Beast of Reincarnation, which landed day one on Game Pass and is one of only two titles in this wave locked to Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Everything else, ten of the twelve games, also hits the cheaper Game Pass Premium tier, which quietly makes this one of the better months Premium has had since the tier split.

The rest of the calendar, at a glance

August 6 brings Monsters are Coming! and PowerWash Simulator 2, the sequel to the game half of us use as a podcast companion. August 11 is the dense day: the desert mech ranch sim Bounty Star, the dating-everything comedy Date Everything!, and Obsidian's Grounded 2 arriving in Game Preview. Ball x Pit follows on August 12, then August 13 stacks Cricket 26, the lovely-looking metroidvania Mio: Memories in Orbit, and the PC-only Sandustry preview. Egging On closes the wave on August 18. On top of the games, EA Play members get a ten hour Madden NFL 27 trial starting August 6, and there is a new Call of Duty Warzone Game Pass Pack available now.

Our take, and the games leaving

The honest read is that this wave is built for breadth rather than one marquee bombshell, and that is fine. Between the E-Day beta, Grounded 2 and PowerWash Simulator 2, an Ultimate subscription has plenty to do for the first half of the month without spending anything extra, and Premium finally gets most of the same list. The catch is the exit door: Firewatch, Atlas Fallen, Aliens: Fireteam Elite and the Menace preview all leave on August 15. Firewatch in particular takes about four hours, so if you have been putting it off for years, this is a natural weekend to fix that before it goes.