Games

PC Game Pass Adds Former Epic Games Store Exclusive With Positive Reviews

Published

3 weeks ago

October 31, 2024

Christoph Rediske

Key Takeaways

Table of Contents

PC Game Pass has added Dead Island 2.
Dambuster Studios’ action RPG was originally added to Xbox Game Pass in February 2024, but skipped the PC tier of the service due to a then-active temporary exclusivity deal with Epic.
Dead Island 2 is the final Xbox Game Pass release for October 2024.

PC Game Pass has added Dead Island 2 to its content catalog. This development marks the final Xbox Game Pass release for October 2024.

Dead Island 2 originally hit the market in April 2023 following years of development hell that saw it switch developers several times. Ahead of its debut, Embracer Group struck a publishing agreement with Epic, making the PC version of the action RPG exclusive to the Epic Games Store for a year. This is why Dead Island 2 skipped PC Game Pass back in February 2024, when it was originally added to Microsoft’s subscription service.

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Since then, Dead Island 2 made its way to Steam in April 2024, but remained largely unavailable to Microsoft’s subscribers on PC. “Largely” because it was technically possible to play it on PC by subscribing to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and streaming it via Xbox Cloud Gaming. This changes today, October 31, when the action RPG at last arrives on PC Game Pass.

Since its release, Dead Island 2 achieved a “Strong” rating on OpenCritic, derived from an aggregate score of 75 and a 57% reviewer recommendation rate. The first-person ARPG also boasts “Mostly Positive” reviews on Steam, based on over 6,600 player impressions. As such, Dead Island 2 seems poised to bolster the selection of compelling action RPGs on PC Game Pass.

Upcoming Xbox Game Pass Games Release Calendar

Game	Date Added Advertisement	Game Pass Tier(s)	Platform(s)	Notes
Dead Island 2	Oct 31 Advertisement	Ultimate, PC	PC	Cloud and console versions available since February 2024.
StarCraft: Remastered	Nov 5 Advertisement
StarCraft 2: Campaign Collection
Metal Slug Tactics			Cloud, Console, PC	Day-one release.
Goat Simulator Remastered Advertisement	Nov 7		Cloud, PC, Series X/S
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024	Nov 19		Cloud, PC, Series X/S
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl Advertisement	Nov 20		Cloud(?), PC, Series X/S
Nine Sols	Nov 26		Cloud(?), Console, PC Advertisement	Day-one (Xbox version) release.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle	Dec 9		Cloud, PC, Series X/S	Day-one release. Advertisement

The arrival of Dead Island 2 concludes the October 2024 lineup of Xbox Game Pass releases, which included 10 new titles. Moving forward, Microsoft’s subscription service is set to add StarCraft: Remastered and StarCraft 2: Campaign Collection on November 5. That’s also the day when Metal Slug Tactics will debut as a day-one addition to its content catalog.

Another four titles have already been confirmed to be coming to Xbox Game Pass later in November 2024. The first of those is Goat Simulator Remastered, which is scheduled to debut on November 7. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl are then scheduled to follow suit on the 19th and 20th of the month, respectively. Finally, 2D soulslike Nine Sols will arrive on November 26. Since all of these November 2024 Xbox Game Pass releases are day-one titles, they will only be available via PC Game Pass and the Ultimate tier of the service. The same goes for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is planned to reach Xbox Game Pass on December 9 and will likely be the platform’s biggest release of the month.

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.