Microsoft just dropped the second wave of Xbox and PC Game Pass additions for August 2026 and if you’re subscribed, this is a genuinely strong stretch. The headliner is a full day-one launch of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, the third entry in Asobo’s dark historical adventure series — a prequel that ditches the franchise’s signature stealth gameplay and swings hard into action combat instead. But there’s also Blood Dungeon from the Nidhogg creators, a few other solid pickups, and a handful of titles leaving at the end of the month that you should know about before they disappear.
Here’s the full breakdown.
The Big One — Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy (Day One, August 27)
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is the third A Plague Tale game from Asobo Studio, published by Focus Entertainment. It launches August 27, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and it’s hitting Game Pass Ultimate on day one — no waiting, no price drop required.
Story — Who Is Sophia and What Happened on Crete?
If you played A Plague Tale: Requiem, you met Sophia briefly — the fierce smuggler who acts as a mentor to Amicia and Hugo. Resonance goes back 15 years before those events, to 1334, and tells Sophia’s origin story. She’s younger, harder-edged, and on the run — fleeing Venice after things go wrong with the plunderer gang she grew up with, hunted by visions she can’t explain, and drawn to Minotaur’s Island near Crete where she believes the answers about her connection to the Prima Macula’s ancient history are buried.
The game runs dual timelines — present-day Sophia on Crete, and flashback sequences set in her past that flesh out how she became who she is. You also play briefly as Greek hero Theseus, which ties into the Minotaur mythology that runs through the whole game’s structure. The Prima Macula and its swarm remain part of the story, just used differently given the island setting.
Gameplay — This Is Not a Stealth Game Anymore
Resonance is a significant departure from what made Innocence and Requiem feel like Plague Tale games. The rat-evasion stealth mechanics are gone. What’s replaced them is full melee combat with a parry system, finishing moves, and one-versus-many fight sequences — closer to Uncharted or Tomb Raider than anything the franchise has done before. Sophia can actually fight back, and the game is built around that. Early previews have described it as exactly that pitch: a legitimate play for the Uncharted and Tomb Raider crown.
The setting shifts the tone too. Instead of plague-ravaged, rat-infested medieval France, Resonance plays out on sun-bleached Cretan ruins — the palace of Knossos, the labyrinth beneath it, the ancient cisterns, treacherous cliffsides. It’s brighter, more expansive, and more visually varied than its predecessors. Puzzles are reportedly a major focus alongside combat, with Minoan sphere mechanics and light-manipulation chambers showing up in previews as genuine standouts.
The game is built in Asobo’s in-house Zouna engine, and it’s an Xbox Play Anywhere title — buy it once on Xbox or PC and play on both at no extra cost.
Do You Need to Play the First Two Games?
Resonance is a standalone prequel, so you can go in fresh. That said, Sophia is introduced in Requiem and her role there adds weight to what Resonance is doing with her character. If you have the time, playing Innocence and Requiem first is the better call. Both have been on Game Pass previously, so check your library if you subscribed during those windows. Innocence in particular is a legitimately great game that holds up, and the tonal contrast between it and Resonance makes both more interesting.
Blood Dungeon — The Other Day-One Worth Playing (August 25)
Blood Dungeon hits Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on August 25 — the same day as its global launch across Xbox, PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2. It’s self-published by Messhof, the Venice, California indie studio behind Nidhogg and Nidhogg II.
If you played Nidhogg at a party and spent three hours doing nothing else, you know what Messhof is about. Blood Dungeon is a completely different game mechanically, but the Messhof DNA — tight controls, absurdist pixel art, completely stupid fun — carries over.
What Kind of Game Is Blood Dungeon?
The short version: it’s a bullet heaven platformer with roguelike progression. Think Vampire Survivors crossed with Spelunky. You pick one of nine playable characters — including Gun Man (a baby in a onesie, drawn like a 1997 MS Paint project), a hooded skeleton, a giant buzzing insect, and a naked buff dude — and survive increasingly chaotic dungeon rooms while your character auto-attacks the hordes around you. Your job is movement: kiting enemies, parkouring up ladders, running across ceilings and grates, navigating underwater sections, routing through the maze intelligently rather than just facetanking.
There are over 100 enemy types — bats, centaurs, exploding eyeballs, a giant Medusa head, fauns playing pan flutes, spooky ghosts, a big worm — each with different movement patterns. Some fly through walls. Others bounce, stick, or crawl on surfaces. Dozens of weapons are available, bolstered by unlockable upgrades bought with the bones and gold you collect per run. Six survival arenas are in at launch, with complete quests unlocking more upgrades, skins, and content.
Messhof co-founder Mark Essen built most of it on a $50 drawing tablet in spare moments over several years, which probably explains why it feels like a genuine creative sketch rather than a committee-approved product. The soundtrack is described as “dungeon drum and bass,” which is all you need to know about the vibe. The Steam demo has a 94% positive rating from early players. It’s the kind of small, sharp, wildly replayable game that Game Pass is genuinely great at delivering.
Full List of Every Game Coming to Game Pass Late August 2026
- Egging On (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, PC) — August 18, new on Game Pass Premium
- Vapor World: Over the Mind — Game Preview (Cloud, Console, PC) — August 19, Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- BlazBlue Entropy Effect X (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — August 19, new on Game Pass Premium
- Relooted (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — August 19, new on Game Pass Premium
- Starsand Island (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — August 20, new on Game Pass Premium
- Aerial_Knight’s DropShot (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, PC) — August 25, new on Game Pass Premium
- Blood Dungeon (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, PC) — August 25, Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, PC) — August 27, Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass
- Young Suns (Cloud, Console, PC) — August 31, new on Game Pass Premium
- Shelldiver (Cloud, Console, PC) — September 1, Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and PC Game Pass
Games with a “Handheld” designation are specifically optimised for handheld play, which matters if you’re on a ROG Ally, Steam Deck running Xbox app, or similar device.
Leaving Game Pass — Act Fast Before August 31
This is the part that catches people off guard. Six games leave on August 31, with one more following shortly after:
- Another Crab’s Treasure (Cloud, Console, PC) — leaving August 31
- I Am Your Beast (Cloud, Console, PC) — leaving August 31
- Neon Abyss (Cloud, Console, PC) — leaving August 31
- One Lonely Outpost (Cloud, Console, PC) — leaving August 31
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered Edition (Cloud, Console) — leaving August 31
- NBA 2K26 (Cloud, Console, PC) — leaving September 6
Should You Rush the Witcher 3 Before It Goes?
Honestly, yes — if you’ve been sitting on it. The Witcher 3 Remastered is one of the best RPGs ever made and it’s been on Game Pass long enough that a lot of people have kept meaning to start it without actually doing it. With a third expansion reportedly in the works, there’s a real argument that now is actually the perfect time to finally do the full Geralt run before new content makes the world feel bigger than ever. The base game alone is 50-100 hours depending on how completionist you go. You’ve got until the end of the month.
Another Crab’s Treasure is also worth grabbing before it disappears — it’s a genuinely funny soulslike set in an underwater world of trash and consumer detritus, with approachable difficulty and more personality than most games in its genre. If you like soulslikes even a little, give it a weekend before August 31.
For more on the gaming news cycle this week, gameplay footage surfaced for Star Wars: Magellan — a canceled RPG that nobody knew existed until a former developer uploaded portfolio reels — and the Modern Warfare 4 beta goes live August 21 with campaign, multiplayer, and Warzone all playable in the same session. If you need a controller in good shape before that beta hits, IllFonic’s Halloween: The Game also just sorted out its New Zealand launch situation if that one was on your radar for September.
