New Xbox Game Pass Update Is a “Nightmare” for Subscribers

October 2, 2026, 8:46pm

A new Xbox Game Pass update from Xbox is being described as a “nightmare” for subscribers. It’s Halloween season, so “nightmare” may sound good, but it’s not the good type of nightmare. Xbox Game Pass isn’t being updated with any great horror games this month. It’s actually losing a horror game. More than that, it’s losing some of the subscription service’s best games, including the 2025 Game of the Year winner. And it’s all happening at once on October 15.

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For the month of October, there are currently 9 Xbox Game Pass releases scheduled. Of course, there will be surprise drops mixed in, but of the 9, there is really only one noteworthy game, which is Gears of War: E-Day coming on October 6. Meanwhile, almost all of this is negated by 8 games being removed on October 15. And the games leaving collectively are far more noteworthy. Far more noteworthy. The most noteworthy of the noteworthy is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, 2025’s Game of the Year winner and one of the defining RPGs of the generation. This is bad enough, but A Plague Tale: Requiem is also leaving, a Game of the Year contender in 2022.

Joining these two games is Crime Scene Cleaner, which was once one of the most-played Xbox Game Pass games last year. Meanwhile, Nova Roma is leaving before it even leaves Game Preview. There is also a horror game departure in the form of The Casting of Frank Stone, which is bad timing considering the aforementioned Halloween looming. There is also indie darling Donut County, former PlayStation exclusive Pacific Drive, and Evil West, which is a solid Halloween game option for those who can’t handle horror. In terms of single-day departures, it’s one of the worst the subscription service has ever experienced.

Subscribers Are Mad

To this end, over on the Xbox Game Pass Reddit page, subscribers have described the update as a “nightmare.”

“Good lord, there is no way the quality coming in is gonna be able to replace this,” writes one Xbox Game Pass subscriber. Another adds, “These are huge losses!”

A third subscriber drives the point home: “They should honestly drop the prices for Game Pass again. Selection has been pathetic.”

This library downgrade follows another downgrade to the subscription service as a whole last month. As we have noted many times, it’s not been a banner year for the subscription service. In fact, it’s been a pretty lousy year, but it looks like that will be the new norm going forward.

To be fair to Xbox Game Pass, not many games are releasing this October and November due to GTA 6, and December is always slow for game releases. As a result, there are a limited number of day-one games to secure, but this is why you’d think it would have a great selection of non-day-one games slated to compensate, but it doesn’t.