*UPDATED* It’s a Sprint: Games Leaving Game Pass Halloween 2024 Edition

Lonely Mountains: Downhill, image by Megagon Industries

Just as the autumn leaves once again begin their yearly dance (just kidding, it’s 88 degrees today), it is time for more games to rotate in and out of Microsoft’s subscription service. If you didn’t read yesterday’s article, the purpose of this series is to spotlight what you might be interested in burning through over the next couple weeks (or at least demoing before making a discounted purchase). 

Here’s what’s leaving Game Pass on Halloween:

Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery

Metacritic Score: 79

Play time estimate according to HowLongToBeat: 4-4.5 hours

Headbangers: Rhythm Royale

Metacritic Score: 74

Play time estimate according to HowLongToBeat: 3.5 hours

Inkulinati

Metacritic Score: 78

Play time estimate according to HowLongToBeat: 8-16.5 hours

Lonely Mountains: Downhill

Metacritic Score: 84

Play time estimate according to HowLongToBeat: 6-34 hours

Mineko’s Night Market

Metacritic Score: 66

Play time estimate according to HowLongToBeat: 17-37.5 hours

What do you think? Overall not nearly as rough as the PlayStation Plus announcement (though, it helps that Xbox splits its bad news between a couple updates rather than dumping 18 cuts on us all at the same time). 

I’ll probably give Frog Detective a shot, but as I established yesterday, I have a lot of Blasphemous and Klonoa to limp through. I’ve also always thought Mineko’s Ghibli inspired brand of business simulation looked charming, but I’d be lying if I said that that completion time didn’t give me paws (it’s a cat game, I’m very funny). Lonely Mountains: Downhill is an extremely punishing mountain biking puzzle game (more Trials than Tony Hawk–or Dave Mirra, I guess) that I was obsessed with for a couple weeks. Megagon Industries is currently prepping a spiritual successor titled Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders for release later this year, and if any of the developers are reading this, I’d love to review it. 

There’s an Xbox event tomorrow morning so I’ll probably be back here to update you if anything interesting is shown. Until then, reject the notion you don’t have time to play everything  (that’s my nice way of saying grab a controller and get off the internet–or go watch game 3 of the WNBA Finals tonight).

UPDATE 10/18/24

When the Xbox app updated today it was revealed that we’re losing two additional games:

Dirt 5

Metacritic Score: 79

Play time estimate according to HowLongToBeat: 8.5-23.5 hours

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Metacritic Score: 81

Play time estimate according to HowLongToBeat: 23.5-124 hours

Dirt 5 is a racing game focused on rally and attempts to straddle the line between arcade and simulation. For me, it brings back fond memories of when the X Games were still hosted in LA. 

Ishin, on the other hand, drops the familiar Yakuza cast into the late Edo Period of Japan and has all the staples of the series before it went turn-based (style swapping/beat ‘em up combat, a deep narrative, and wild side stories to complete).