Xbox Games Pass Removes Three Big Games This Month

Games come and go, that's the nature of Xbox Game Pass. The games you have access to on there are not yours forever, and the popular games-on-demand service will witness three high-profile departures in the next two weeks, as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Shenmue I & II will be leaving Game Pass on Xbox One. This news comes via a recent update on the Microsoft Store, and since these are fairly big games, you'll need to set some time aside if you want to dig into them. On the bright side, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is out now on Game Pass.

Deux Ex: Mankind Divided is the 2016 sequel to 2011's excellent Deux Ex: Human Revolution. The cyberpunk RPG follow-up puts you back in the augmented boots of Adam Jensen and sets you loose on dense sandbox environments with the freedom to approach objectives in myriad ways. Edmond Tran gave it a score of 8/10 in GameSpot's review, saying, "Deus Ex: Mankind Divided refines and reinforces the defining foundations of the series. It creates challenging situations and gives players the tools and flexibility to deal with them in a multitude of ways, all within an absorbing cyberpunk world. Although not a significant departure from Human Revolution, Mankind Divided is still a uniquely fulfilling experience, one which feels rare in games today."

Shenmue I & II, meanwhile, is a 2018 remastered collection of two classic games. Shenmue was originally released on the Dreamcast back in 1999 and is widely regarded as one of the best games of all time. It might be showing its age now, even with all of the remastered trimmings, but its open-world map was incredible for the time and still holds certain charms today. You play as teenage martial artist Ryo Hazuki as he seeks revenge for his father's death by talking to lots of people and occasionally punching them. The narrative and exploratory elements set it apart from your regular action title, and its sequel is equally well regarded. Released in 2001, Shenmue II continues Ryo's revenge mission in a story that leads into 2019's belated release of Shenmue III. Both games will be leaving Game Pass on Xbox One but there's no word on whether they'll also be leaving the service on PC.

Thimbleweed Park and Lichtspeer: Double Speer Edition are departing Game Pass on both Xbox One and PC in the next couple of weeks as well. You can, of course, still purchase any of these games before they go, and your Game Pass membership will give you a 20% discount. You'll need to be quick if you want to play them before they depart the service, though, but it's not all bad news. As with any departures come new arrivals, and Game Pass recently added the likes of Yakuza 0, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Kingdom Hearts III, Final Fantasy XV, and World of Horror. Beyond that, a new slate of Xbox Game Pass games for March have been announced for both Xbox One and PC.