Alright, if you’re a Game Pass subscriber and you haven’t opened the app in a while, now’s the time to do it — because September 15, 2026 is about to hurt. Microsoft just confirmed that ten games are leaving Xbox Game Pass this month, and the headliners are the kind of titles that most subscriptions would build entire marketing campaigns around. We’re talking Cyberpunk 2077, Dead Cells, and Spiritfarer — three games that belong in any serious conversation about the best of their respective genres. They’re going away in three days, so let’s talk about what’s worth your time before they vanish.
The Full List of Xbox Game Pass Games Leaving September 15
Here’s every game getting the boot on September 15. As usual, Microsoft is offering active subscribers at least a 20% discount on any of these titles if you want to purchase them before they leave:
- Commandos: Origins (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- Cricket 24 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (Cloud and Console only)
- Dead Cells (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- Deep Rock Galactic Survivor (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- Frostpunk 2 (PC only)
- Mullet Madjack (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- Spiritfarer (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- Superliminal (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- Train Sim World 5 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Quick note for PC Game Pass subscribers: Cyberpunk 2077 is only leaving Cloud and Console. PC players are in the clear on that one — for now, at least. Everyone else, the clock is ticking.
Cyberpunk 2077 — One of Gaming’s Greatest Comeback Stories
There are very few redemption arcs in gaming as dramatic as Cyberpunk 2077’s. When CD Projekt Red’s open-world RPG launched in December 2020, it was an absolute disaster on home consoles — so broken that Sony pulled it from the PlayStation Store entirely, and Microsoft offered full refunds to anyone who asked. It was one of the most hyped games in a decade, and the crash landing left a stain on CD Projekt Red’s reputation that many thought would never fully wash out.
Then something remarkable happened. CDPR dug in, spent years releasing patches, updates, and optimizations, and eventually dropped the massive 2.0 overhaul alongside the Phantom Liberty expansion in 2023. The game that emerged from that process is genuinely a different beast. What had been a janky, overpromised mess became one of the most visually stunning and atmospheric open-world experiences in modern gaming — a neon-soaked, gritty cyberpunk fantasy that rewards exploration and experimentation in equal measure.
By The Game Awards 2023, Cyberpunk 2077 had earned four nominations including Best Ongoing Game, Best Community Support, and Best Narrative for Phantom Liberty, with Idris Elba’s performance as Solomon Reed pulling in a Best Performance nod as well. Phantom Liberty is a spy-thriller expansion that could stand alone as one of the best narrative games of that year. The Metacritic score for the PC version settled at a strong 86 post-patches, a far cry from the chaos of launch day.
You are not going to finish Cyberpunk 2077 before September 15. That’s just reality — Night City is enormous and the main story alone runs 40+ hours if you’re being deliberate about it. But even a few hours in the opening acts of the game is enough to understand why people who bounced off the launch version came back and never left. If you’ve never touched it, boot it up, do the prologue, hit Heist, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Then decide if you want to buy it at the subscriber discount before it leaves. Chances are good that you will.
Dead Cells — Still the Benchmark After All These Years
If Cyberpunk 2077 is the emotional gut punch of this wave, Dead Cells is the one that’s going to haunt roguelike fans specifically. Motion Twin’s 2018 masterpiece didn’t just succeed as a roguelike — it essentially invented its own subgenre, the “RogueVania,” by fusing the replayability of roguelites with the interconnected map progression of Metroidvanias. Nobody had done it quite that cleanly before, and honestly, very few have matched it since.
The numbers tell the story. Dead Cells sits at an 89 on Metacritic for PC, a 91 on Xbox One with universal critical acclaim, and carries a staggering 97% positive rating across more than 155,000 Steam reviews. It won Best Action Game at The Game Awards 2018 and Best Indie at the Golden Joysticks the same year. On OpenCritic it holds a 95% recommendation rate in the “Mighty” tier. Some individual reviewers handed it a flat 100/10, and reading those reviews, you understand why — the combat is tuned to the millimeter, the feel is immaculate, and the loop of die, learn, and run again never gets old.
Dead Cells is also one of those rare games that got better over time. Motion Twin and later Evil Empire spent years adding DLC, enemy types, weapons, and biomes without ever breaking the fundamental rhythm that made the base game work. Six-plus years of updates and it still plays as crisp as it did on day one. That level of craft and restraint is genuinely uncommon in this industry.
Can you finish Dead Cells before September 15? Technically yes, but it depends entirely on your skill level and your personal definition of “finish.” The base game’s credit roll is reachable in a few hours if you click with the combat fast. Getting to the true ending and clearing all the difficulty tiers is a much longer road. Either way, it’s worth every minute.
Spiritfarer — The One That Will Actually Make You Cry
Look, not every Game Pass removal is going to be the most intense open-world game ever made or the defining roguelike of its generation. Sometimes what’s leaving is something gentler, quieter, and somehow more devastating for it. Spiritfarer is that game for this wave.
Thunder Lotus’s 2020 co-op management sim puts you in the role of Stella, a young woman who takes over as the Spiritfarer — a ferry master who guides souls to the afterlife. Your job is to build and run a boat, gather resources, cook food, and care for a cast of animal companions who each represent a spirit waiting to move on. What sounds like a laid-back crafting game turns out to be one of the most honest, thoughtful explorations of grief and death that gaming has ever attempted. Every character you help pass on is a gut punch in the best possible way.
Spiritfarer launched in 2020 and racked up a significant number of award nominations. The game scored an 85 on Metacritic and was consistently praised by critics for its emotional depth, gorgeous hand-drawn art style, and surprisingly compelling progression loop. It’s a game that rewards patience — the kind of game you sink a few hours into at a time, not one you sprint through. That means most subscribers won’t finish it before September 15, which is genuinely a shame.
But here’s the thing about Spiritfarer: even a couple of hours with it is worth your time. Meet the characters, settle into the rhythm of the boat, let the game do its thing. If you have a couch co-op partner available, play it together — the second-player role as Stella’s cat Daffodil is genuinely sweet, and the experience hits differently when you’re sharing it. This is one of those games that people recommend to their non-gamer friends when they’re trying to explain why games can be a legitimate emotional art form.
The Rest of the Wave — Other Games Worth a Look
While Cyberpunk 2077, Dead Cells, and Spiritfarer are the clear priorities, a few other departing titles are worth mentioning for specific types of players.
Frostpunk 2 (leaving PC Game Pass) is the sequel to the acclaimed survival city-builder and cranks up the scale and complexity considerably. If you enjoy managing societies under extreme pressure — in this case, keeping an entire city alive on a resource-starved frozen planet — and haven’t touched Frostpunk 2 yet, the next few days are your window on PC. It’s a proper strategy title that demands attention and thought, and it’s been well received.
Deep Rock Galactic Survivor is the roguelike spin-off of the beloved co-op shooter Deep Rock Galactic, and it’s been a quiet hit — the auto-shooting resource-extraction loop is weirdly addictive and scratches a completely different itch than the base game. Worth a few hours, especially if you’re into the Vampire Survivors style of play.
Superliminal is a perspective-bending puzzle game built around the concept of forced perspective — objects you pick up resize based on how far away you are from them when you place them down. It’s short, clever, and the kind of thing that makes your brain feel good when things click. If you haven’t played it, it’s easily completable in a single session before September 15.
Mullet Madjack deserves a shoutout too — it’s a hyper-fast, ultra-stylized FPS with a ten-second kill timer mechanic that keeps the pace absolutely relentless. Completely unhinged in the best way. If you want something that’ll fill forty-five minutes and leave your hands slightly shaking, that’s your game.
What’s Coming to Make Up for the Loss?
September’s first wave of additions isn’t quite at the same level as what’s leaving, but it’s not empty either. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is the headliner joining the service, along with RuneScape: Dragonwilds, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage, and a handful of others. Looking further ahead, Minecraft Dungeons 2 and Gears of War: E-Day are both on the horizon as major day-one Game Pass additions — the kind of heavy hitters that justify keeping the subscription going through the gaps.
Game Pass continues to be one of the best value propositions in gaming precisely because it cycles in enough big titles to offset the losses, but September 15 is one of those days where the departures genuinely sting. Cyberpunk 2077, Dead Cells, and Spiritfarer aren’t filler — they’re games that would anchor a subscription library. Losing all three on the same day is a hit.
The broader question of what players actually get to keep from a subscription service is one the whole gaming industry is grappling with right now — as the ongoing Sony digital ownership lawsuit makes clear, the line between “access” and “ownership” has never felt more relevant. Whether you’re on Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, or any other subscription model, the games you play through these services exist on borrowed time. The September 15 removals are a good reminder to prioritize what matters before the window closes.
And if you’re into the broader picture of what’s coming to gaming beyond Game Pass additions — from classic franchises like Thief getting full remasters with brand-new campaigns to major Switch 2 exclusive reveals — late 2026 is shaping up to be a genuinely stacked period for games. The vault may be losing some classics on September 15, but the road ahead looks busy.
In the meantime: open your Xbox, load up Cyberpunk 2077, and see Night City before your trial run expires. You’ve got until Monday.
