Xbox Game Pass: Outer Wilds among nine games leaving the service on New Year’s Day

Mobius Digital’s acclaimed time-looping adventure Outer Wilds is one of nine titles leaving Xbox Game Pass at the start of the new year. Microsoft’s subscription service, which is notorious for shuffling its library of games every month, didn’t mention the removal of these titles in its latest Xbox blog post. Scrolling down to the “Leaving soon” section on the Xbox app, however, reveals that there are nine games on track to leave the service on January 1, 2023. Given that it’s in the app Xbox, it’s basically official.

As one of the best titles to leave Game Pass, Outer Wilds features a bizarre premise where you play as an unnamed space explorer stuck in a time loop. Every 22 minutes, the star in the solar system goes supernova, resetting the planets and particles to their original state. Not to be confused with space RPG The Outer Worlds – also available on Game Pass – here you’re tasked with exploring the secrets of an extinct race and solving the overall mystery.

Outer Wilds received an Xbox Series S/X upgrade in July via Game Pass – enabling 60fps – and will be leaving the platform soon.

Other major titles leaving the service include Square Enix’s Scarlet Nexus, where you harness psychokinetic powers to fight in expert hack-and-slack segments to unravel the mysteries of a Brain Punk future. The Pedestrian, recently released on PlayStation, as part of the PS Plus Extra and Deluxe catalog, will also launch on January 1.

Earlier this month, Xbox brought Hello Neighbor 2 to its subscription service – a day-one launch – bringing you back to Raven Brooks as an investigative reporter to spy on your creepy neighbor. And while it’s limited to a single-player experience, its multiplayer spin-off title, Secret Neighbor, will drop from Game Pass on New Year’s Day.

Xbox Game Pass will bid farewell to the following nine games, starting January 1, 2023.

You can choose to buy all of these games at 20% off before they leave Game Pass for good. Microsoft is also holding its annual Xbox Countdown Sale until January 2, 2023, offering deep discounts on several titles. Games like Elden Ring, Gotham Knights: Deluxe Edition, and Need for Speed ​​Unbound saw their first discounts since launch.

Earlier in December, Xbox Game Pass introduced 11 exciting additions to Game Pass, which included three day one launches: Hello Neighbor 2, Justin Roiland’s High on Life, and a retro-style RPG Chained Echoes. The catalog also included the highly revered Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, where you relive comic renditions of all nine episodes of the epic titular film series. Metal: Helsinger, a rhythm-based, demon-slaying experience, has also finally arrived on Xbox One.

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