Xbox Game Pass reveals September wave with Gears of War: E-Day as the headliner

Xbox confirmed 13 games hitting Game Pass through October, with Gears of War: E-Day launching day one and Dune: Awakening making its console debut.

Xbox confirmed the second September wave for Game Pass this week, and this one is loaded. In an official post on Xbox Wire, the team listed 13 games hitting the catalog through early October, with Gears of War: E-Day as the clear headliner, a game Microsoft itself is calling the platform's biggest exclusive of the year.

E-Day lands October 6 as a day one release, which already says a lot about how much weight Xbox is putting behind it. It's a prequel set 14 years before the original Gears, following younger versions of Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago during the Locust invasion. The game promises more verticality than previous entries, with sliding and jumping built into combat, plus a new Horde Siege mode for up to 12 players at once.

The other big name in the wave is Dune: Awakening, finally making its console debut on September 22 after months as a PC exclusive. This version brings the full single player campaign and the Book One story finale, along with UI tweaks built specifically for controller play. Makes sense: a survival MMO set in an alternate Dune timeline where Paul Atreides was never born is a much easier sell to console players once it doesn't depend entirely on mouse and keyboard.

The list also includes Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 joining the catalog for free on September 25, Minecraft Dungeons II arriving day one on the 29th, and RuneScape: Dragonwilds, already live since yesterday after leaving early access. Smaller titles like Kernel Hearts, Routine, and Planet of Lana II round things out, proof Microsoft isn't dropping the indie middle ground just because there's AAA on the table.

On the flip side, eight games are leaving the service on September 30, and the one that stings most is Sifu. Sloclap's combat still holds up as one of the sharpest in the genre, so anyone who hasn't finished it yet has about two weeks before having to buy it outright.

What actually stands out here isn't the volume, it's the timing. Putting E-Day day one on Game Pass, alongside Black Ops 6 and Minecraft Dungeons II in the same month, is Xbox swinging hard right as PS5 and Switch 2 are also unloading their own heavy hitters for the year. For anyone already subscribed, it's a flood of content at no extra cost. For anyone on the fence about signing up, this particular month makes saying no a lot harder to justify.