Xbox Game Pass loses Celeste and more games at the end of July

12 hours ago 2

Published Jul 20, 2026, 12:54 PM EDT

Celeste is just one game being removed after years on the service

July continues to be a big month for Xbox Game Pass removals. After 10 titles left the subscription service on July 15, Xbox has announced a second wave of titles that will no longer be available Game Pass after the end of the month. This round includes indie platformer Celeste and the strategy role-playing game Crusader Kings 3, two highly rated titles that have been on the service for years.

Xbox updated the "Leaving Soon" page on the Xbox Cloud Gaming site over the weekend, as spotted by Pure Xbox. The full list of titles getting removed from the service on July 31 is as follows:

Back to the Dawn — console, PC, cloud
Celeste — console, PC, cloud
Crusader Kings 3 — console, PC, cloud
Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord — console, PC, cloud
My Friendly Neighborhood — console, PC, cloud
Rain World — console, PC, cloud
Sniper Elite: Resistance — console, PC, cloud
Whiskerwood — PC

Celeste is one of the most notable removals. The indie platformer is universally praised for its well-designed gameplay that demands pixel-perfect movement from the player, and its emotionally resonant story. While the game was released in 2018, it was on Game Pass from 2020 to 2021. It was added back to the service in 2023 and has remained there until now. The strategy title Crusader Kings 3 is in a similar situation. The critically acclaimed RPG has been available on Game Pass since September 2020. Other standouts from this removal include survival platformer Rain World and strategy RPG Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord.

The 10 titles removed on July 15 also included a handful of big losses. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition, Stellaris, and Powerwash Simulator all got the boot. The delightful Zelda-like Dungeons of Hinterburg also left Game Pass. That means eighteen games in total will be removed from the service this month. That's an increase over the thirteen removed in June.

Titles coming and going from Game Pass isn't surprising in itself, but Xbox has been going through an especially tumultuous time in the past month. The company initiated a sweeping wave of layoffs and studio cuts on July 6 that was accompanied by a lengthy post from CEO Asha Sharma about Xbox's new direction. While Game Pass was not directly addressed, it seems day-one releases for first-party titles on the service are being phased out. Game Pass reportedly lost millions of subscribers in the past year due to an October 2025 price hike. In response to this, the price of Game Pass Ultimate was slightly lowered and a cheaper, pared-down version of the service was announced. In addition to Xbox's latest round of layoffs and cuts, the company has been a priority target of the BDS movement's boycott campaigns since July 2025.

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