Summary
- Xbox Game Pass is losing six games—including Exoprimal and Escape Academy—on January 15, most likely around midnight local time.
- Half of the soon-to-be-departing games are multiplayer titles.
- PC gamers will still be able to continue playing Escape Academy tomorrow, when the Epic Games Store will start giving it away.
Xbox Game Pass is losing six games later today, January 15. This wave of departures will potentially be a blow to subscribers who use Xbox Game Pass for multiplayer titles.
The XGP content catalog typically shrinks every 15 days, in the middle and at the tail end of each month. The latest such wave of outgoings happened on December 31, when Xbox Game Pass lost LEGO 2K Drive, McPixel 3, and four other titles.
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Another half a dozen games are set to follow suit in the next 24 hours. The list of January 15 Xbox Game Pass departures includes Escape Academy, Those Who Remain, Exoprimal, Insurgency: Sandstorm, Figment: Journey Into the Mind, and Common’hood.
Xbox Game Pass Games Leaving Today, January 15
|
Game |
Platform(s) |
Added |
How Long To Beat |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Common’hood |
Cloud, Console, PC |
Jul 2023 |
23–36 hours |
|
Escape Academy |
Jul 2022 |
5–6 hours |
|
|
Exoprimal |
Jul 2023 |
28–39 hours |
|
|
Figment: Journey Into the Mind |
Jan 2024 |
5–6.5 hours |
|
|
Insurgency: Sandstorm |
Nov 2022 |
80–118 hours |
|
|
Those Who Remain |
Jan 2024 |
6–8 hours |
Multiplayer titles account for half of the first 2025 wave of Xbox Game Pass departures. Exoprimal and Insurgency: Sandstorm are both multiplayer-only shooters, whereas Escape Academy offers a co-op mode that’s been widely praised by critics and fans alike. Escape Academy also boasts the longest Xbox Game Pass stint out of these six departures, as it was added to Microsoft’s on-demand content catalog in July 2022, debuting as a day-one release.
Escape Academy May Be Leaving Xbox Game Pass, But It Will Be Free Tomorrow
Game removal times on Microsoft’s subscription service vary, but most titles are pulled from its content catalog near the end of the day of their scheduled departure. Xbox Game Pass subscribers in the U.S. thus have roughly 18 more hours to try these soon-to-be-removed titles as of this writing. That’s enough time to comfortably beat Figment: Journey Into the Mind or Those Who Remain. Ditto for Escape Academy, although the escape-the-room-style puzzler only requires urgency from console gamers. Namely, the PC version of Escape Academy will be free to claim on the Epic Games Store starting tomorrow, January 16.
The next series of Xbox Game Pass removals is expected to take place on January 31. The titles that will leave the service at the end of the month should be revealed alongside the Wave 2 lineup for January 2025. This roster is already known to include Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, Eternal Strands, Sniper Elite: Resistance, and Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, four day-one releases that are scheduled to reach Microsoft’s subscription service over the final 11 days of the month. More Xbox Game Pass news is expected to emerge on January 23, which is when the 2025 iteration of the Xbox Developer Direct is taking place.
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.