Microsoft doesn’t do things in half measures this month. The April 2026 Game Pass lineup is one of the biggest drops in recent memory, and that’s not just marketing talk — when you’ve got Hades 2 making its Xbox debut alongside day-one releases like Replaced and Vampire Crawlers, plus Oblivion Remastered quietly sliding into more tiers, there’s genuinely something here for almost every type of subscriber.
Before diving into the main wave, three games already snuck into the service between last month’s announcements and now: Easy Delivery Co. (March 26), Super Meat Boy 3D (March 31), and NBA 2K26 (April 3). Worth knowing about if you missed those.
Now, onto the main event.
The Full Xbox Game Pass April 2026 Wave 1 Lineup
Here’s everything confirmed for this wave, with platforms and tier details:
- Final Fantasy IV (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — April 7 | Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass
- Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (Cloud, Console) — April 8 | Now with Game Pass Essential
- DayZ (PC) — April 8 | Now on PC; Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, Essential
- Endless Legend 2 – Game Preview (PC) — April 8 | Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- FBC: Firebreak (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — April 8 | Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- Planet Coaster 2 (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — April 9 | Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass
- Tiny Bookshop (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, PC) — April 10 | Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass
- Football Manager 26 (PC) — April 13 | Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- Football Manager 26 Console (Cloud, Console, PC) — April 13 | Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- Hades II (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, PC) — April 14 | Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass
- Replaced (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — April 14 | Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
- The Thaumaturge (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — April 14 | Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — April 16 | Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- EA Sports NHL 26 (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S) — April 16 | Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Cloud, Console, PC) — April 17 | Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, PC Game Pass
- Little Rocket Lab (Cloud, Console, PC) — April 21 | Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato (Cloud, Console, Handheld, PC) — April 21 | Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- Vampire Crawlers (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, PC) — April 21 | Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
- Kiln (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, PC) — April 23 | Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
The Games Worth Getting Excited About
Hades 2 is the obvious headline here. The sequel to Supergiant’s 2020 roguelike was one of the highest-rated games of 2025, previously landing on PC and Switch 2. Its arrival on Xbox and Game Pass on April 14 opens it up to a massive new audience, and if you haven’t touched it yet, this is as good an entry point as any. The “just one more run” loop is as dangerous as ever.
Replaced is another massive get — a long-awaited dystopian pixel-art adventure that’s been on people’s wishlists for years. Having it land day-one on Game Pass is exactly the kind of move that justifies a subscription.
FBC: Firebreak, Remedy Entertainment’s cooperative first-person shooter set inside a mysterious federal agency under siege by otherworldly forces, is now expanding to Game Pass Premium on top of Ultimate and PC Game Pass — making it accessible to even more subscribers.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) joining the catalogue on April 17 is a smart addition. Despite being several years old now, it continues to outperform many more recent entries in the series in terms of active players. If you skipped its campaign or multiplayer back at launch, this is well worth revisiting.
And then there’s Kiln — Double Fine’s pottery-themed brawler, which is a sentence that probably needs a moment to land. It arrives day-one on April 23 and is shaping up to be one of April’s more unique offerings.
If you enjoy games that push survival and strategy mechanics to interesting extremes, the recent wave of ambitious releases has been strong — including Frostpunk’s series hitting 11 million sales alongside a major new DLC announcement, another great reason to be a dedicated subscriber right now.
What’s Leaving Game Pass on April 15
New arrivals always mean some departures, and this month’s exits include a genuinely significant one. Five games leave the service on April 15:
- Ashen (Cloud, Console, PC)
- Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (Cloud, Console, PC)
- Grand Theft Auto V (Cloud, Console, PC)
- My Little Pony: A Zephyr Heights Mystery (Cloud, Console, PC)
- Terra Invicta – Game Preview (PC)
Grand Theft Auto V leaving is the big one. If you’ve been meaning to run through it one more time — or finally finish that story mode — April 14 is your last day. After that, it’s gone. As always, Game Pass members can purchase any departing title at a 20% discount before it leaves.
A Strong Month Overall
April doesn’t feel like a filler month. Between the Hades 2 debut, multiple day-one releases, and the continued expansion of Oblivion Remastered to additional tiers, this wave is doing a lot of heavy lifting for subscribers across every plan level.
The indie side of things is particularly solid this month. If you’re the kind of player who gets equally excited about a big roguelike sequel and a strange little cozy game about running a bookshop, April has you covered on both ends — and then some.
For collectors keeping an eye on other big releases this month, the Pokémon TCG 30th Celebration Set is also generating serious buzz in April 2026, in case your backlog isn’t already threatening to collapse under its own weight.
