Key Takeaways
- Xbox Game Pass revealed its November 2024 Wave 2 release lineup.
- The new roster includes six games, but two of them are XGP Standard releases that were already available to some subscribers for a while now.
- Out of the truly new additions, the only surprise is Aliens: Dark Descent, which wasn’t known to be coming to Xbox Game Pass until today.
Microsoft has announced the second wave of the Xbox Game Pass lineup 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 of Xbox 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 on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate in the form of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
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Shortly before MFS 2024 became 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 include Little Kitty, Big City, PlateUp, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Nine Sols, and Aliens: Dark Descent. Out of this group, PlateUp and Little Kitty, Big City have already been available on Xbox Game Pass since 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.
Xbox Game Pass November 2024 Wave 2 Lineup
|
Game |
Date Added |
Game Pass Tier(s) |
Platform(s) |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 |
Nov 19 |
Ultimate, PC |
Cloud, PC, Series X/S |
Day-one release. |
|
Little Kitty, Big City |
Nov 20 |
Standard |
Console |
Available on PC GP and XGP Ultimate since May 2024. |
|
PlateUp! |
Nov 20 |
Standard |
Console |
Available on PC GP and XGP Ultimate since Feb 2024. |
|
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl |
Nov 20 |
Ultimate, PC |
Cloud, PC, Series X/S |
Day-one release. |
|
Nine Sols |
Nov 26 |
Ultimate, PC |
Cloud, Console, PC |
Day-one (Xbox version) release. |
|
Aliens: Dark Descent |
Nov 27 |
Standard, Ultimate, PC |
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 is Aliens: Dark Descent. The fact that one-third of the roster consists of XGP Standard releases highlights a worrying 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 as STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl and Nine 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, with seven titles leaving Xbox Game Pass on November 15 and 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.