Why are games taken off gamepass?

bitq1 · Mar 6, 2025

So i have just finished Persona 3 Reload and i wanted to play Persona 5 Royal because many people said it was the second-best game. So, i go onto game pass thinking "Oh, well i mean Reload was on there so why wouldn't Royal be?" come to find out it is not. It isn't even something like phasmaphobia where if you buy it you can play it on the cloud. So, i did a little digging and found out that on October 31st, 2023 it was removed along with kill it with fire which was another game i enjoyed playing. So this got me thinking, why would xbox remove games that A. are a lot of fun. B. games that people are paying for and, C. i would imagine is driving at least some revenue to Xbox.

So after my rant i guess my real question is: Will Persona 5 Royal ever be added back and why would games even be removed in the first place.

:)

Saeleth

Are they games that are a part of Gamepass? If you dont own them and they were taken off the list that might be why.

Smwutches

It all depends on the agreements they have with the publishers/developers. Only Microsoft games are guaranteed to stay on Game Pass.

Games can be re-added, but there's no way to know until they make an announcement.

NazKebabs

Thanks Brad, yes they were gamepass games. Looks like they were taken off library. Sad.

Deano_M_

had the same thing and the reason was games were being taken off gamepass . so didn't have them anymore

Tezzarrific

gamepass is like netflix, things get added and taken off.

it is up to the game devs/publishers on how long it stays on gamespass, microsoft have no say in that.

there is a section on gamepass that says leaving soon.

Why are games taken off gamepass?