Games

Xbox Game Pass Reveals December 2024 Wave 1 Lineup

Published

1 hour ago

December 3, 2024

Christoph Rediske

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Key Takeaways

Table of Contents

5 new games are coming to Xbox Game Pass in the first half of December 2024.
The list of upcoming additions includes Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
Carrion and Road 96 are returning to Xbox Game Pass in early January 2025.

Microsoft has announced the first wave of the Xbox Game Pass lineup for December 2024, which consists of eight titles. Most of them are new additions to the service, while a few are existing offerings that are only expanding to the Standard tier of Xbox Game Pass.

In the first half of 2024, Microsoft’s subscription service added an average of 14 new titles every month. However, its release pace slowed significantly in the July–November period, with the monthly average dropping to 9.8 new games. This downward trend is underlined by the fact that the Xbox Game Pass library has been shrinking for three consecutive months as of today, consistently losing more titles than it added.

Rumor: Xbox Game Pass May Be Adding Another Beloved Platformer Soon

Some newly surfaced evidence suggests that yet another beloved platformer may be coming to Xbox Game Pass in the near future.

As far as upcoming releases are concerned, Microsoft just announced the first half of the December 2024 Xbox Game Pass lineup, which includes five new titles: Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, Overthrown, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, EA Sports WRC, and Wildfrost. Additionally, Forza Motorsport, Hauntii, and Humanity are going to become available to Xbox Game Pass Standard subscribers in the coming weeks.

Xbox Game Pass Games in December 2024 and Beyond

Xbox Game Pass December 2024 Wave 1 Lineup

Game	Date Added	Game Pass Tier(s)	Platform(s) Advertisement	Notes
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled	Dec 4	Core, Standard, Ultimate	Console Advertisement
DayZ	Dec 4	Core	Console	Available on non-Core tiers since May 2020. Advertisement
Goat Simulator	Dec 4	Core	Console	Last available on non-Core tiers in Nov 2024, will be a Core exclusive. Advertisement
Forza Motorsport	Dec 4	Standard	Series X/S	Available on PC GP and XGP Ultimate since Oct 2023. Advertisement
Hauntii	Dec 4	Standard	Console	Available on PC GP and XGP Ultimate since May 2024. Advertisement
Humanity	Dec 4	Standard	Console	Available on PC GP and XGP Ultimate since May 2024. Advertisement
EA Sports WRC	Dec 5	Ultimate, PC	Cloud, PC, Series X/S
Overthrown (Game Preview) Advertisement	Dec 5	Ultimate, PC	Cloud(?), PC, Series X/S	Day-one release
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Advertisement	Dec 9	Ultimate, PC	Cloud, PC, Series X/S	Day-one release
Wildfrost Advertisement	Dec 10	Ultimate, PC	Cloud, Console, PC
Carrion	Jan 2 Advertisement	Standard, Ultimate, PC	Cloud, Console, PC	Returning title that was last available in Jul 2022.
Road 96	Jan 7 Advertisement	Standard, Ultimate, PC	Cloud, Console, PC	Returning title that was last available in Jun 2023.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled will headline this month’s roster, arriving on Wednesday, December 4. The critically acclaimed remaster of Naughty Dog’s 1999 karting classic will mark the ninth Activision Blizzard title to make its way to Xbox Game Pass since Microsoft acquired the company in late 2023—or the 13th, if Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited Trilogy are counted as three games each. Since it’s not a day-one release, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled will be simultaneously made available across both the Ultimate and Standard tiers of the service. The kart racer never received a PC port and won’t arrive with Xbox Cloud Gaming support, so there still won’t be a way to enjoy it on a desktop for the time being.

The Game Preview version of cozy city builder Overthrown is then set to reach Xbox Game Pass on December 5. It will be followed by Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is currently shaping up to be the highlight of this month’s lineup on account of being its one and only AAA day-one title.

The newly announced release roster also includes two returning games, Carrion and Road 96, which were last available to Microsoft’s subscribers in July 2022 and June 2023, respectively. Both are set to return in early January 2025. Meanwhile, Wildfrost and EA Sports WRC are set to make their Xbox Game Pass debuts in the days ahead.

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.