Game Pass September Wave 1: Black Ops Cold War Arrives, RuneScape: Dragonwilds Goes Day One, and Cyberpunk 2077 Leaves

September's first Game Pass wave landed on Xbox Wire yesterday, and it reads like a month with two headliners and a long goodbye. Microsoft is adding seven games between September 1 and September 15, with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War joining on September 8 and RuneScape: Dragonwilds arriving day one on September 15. The flip side is a ten-game exit list on that same September 15, and it includes Cyberpunk 2077, Dead Cells and Frostpunk 2, three games people were still actively playing on the service.

If August's second wave was a one-headline drop carried by a day one Plague Tale, this one spreads the weight. A Call of Duty campaign from 2020 is not a new release, but it is one of the better single player stories the series has told, and RuneScape stepping onto console for the first time as a day one Game Pass launch is a bigger deal than the modest key art suggests.

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The lineup, day by day

Shelldiver opened the wave on September 1 across cloud, console and PC, and it is on Ultimate, Premium and PC Game Pass. It is an incremental game about a senior turtle who fishes for jellyfish, sells them at a little shop and upgrades gear across oceanic biomes, which is exactly as gentle as it sounds. September 3 brings SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed day one for Ultimate and PC Game Pass members on cloud, Series X|S and PC, the sequel to the competitive co-op platformer where you outrun, outjump and outsmart rivals with grappling hooks in online and local races for up to eight players. Dice a Million follows on September 4, a roguelike deck builder about building the right bag of dice to roll one million, and it arrives on Series X|S, handheld and cloud for Premium, Ultimate and PC members.

September 8 is the Call of Duty day. Black Ops Cold War comes to Ultimate, Premium and PC Game Pass on cloud, console and PC, and Microsoft is leaning on the campaign in its pitch: a gripping single player story that runs through Berlin, Vietnam and Turkey. We flagged how thin the Black Ops 1 and 2 PlayStation ports were last month, so a Cold War drop that costs subscribers nothing extra is a much easier sell. September 10 doubles up with The Royal Writ, a medieval roguelike deck builder where your fallen heroes become the kingdom's legends, and Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage, the 3D fighter with its new single player World Stage mode and cross-play. Both hit Ultimate, Premium and PC Game Pass, with The Royal Writ also supporting handheld.

Then RuneScape: Dragonwilds closes the wave on September 15, day one on cloud, Series X|S and PC for Ultimate, Premium and PC Game Pass. It is a co-operative survival adventure set on Ashenfall, RuneScape's forgotten continent, where dragons have woken up and you gather, build, craft and cast your way toward them. The same day, TCG Card Shop Simulator exits Game Preview with its 1.0 release on cloud, Series X|S, handheld and PC. On the extras side, EA Play members get a ten-hour early access trial of EA Sports NHL 27 on console from September 4, and Aniimo players on every tier collect a monthly reward pack from September 16 with one Aniipod Ultra, fifteen Growth Flowers and three hundred Glimmer.

The exit list is the real story

Ten games leave on September 15: Commandos: Origins, Cricket 24, Cyberpunk 2077, Dead Cells, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, Frostpunk 2, Mullet Madjack, Spiritfarer, Superliminal and Train Sim World 5. That is a heavier cut than usual, and it lands on people mid-playthrough. Cyberpunk 2077 is a hundred-hour game for a lot of players, Frostpunk 2 campaigns run long, and Dead Cells is the kind of thing that lives on your home screen for years. If you are deep into Night City right now, the clock is running.

Our honest read: this is a solid but not spectacular wave. Cold War is a real campaign and Dragonwilds is a genuine day one launch, which is more than most first-half drops manage, and SpeedRunners 2 is the sort of couch multiplayer game the service is good at surfacing. The problem is the timing. Losing Cyberpunk, Dead Cells and Spiritfarer in the same fortnight the new stuff arrives makes the net feel closer to even than the seven-game headline implies. Enjoy Ashenfall, but finish Night City first.