While Age of Mythology: Retold launched on Xbox Game Pass on September 4, several games are also leaving the service. In just over a week, five games will be removed from Xbox Game Pass. This happens around every 15 days, so there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Still, some notable games are leaving the service on September 15, so you should check them out before they are gone. I want to highlight three of those games, ranging from a clever indie to a tense multiplayer game. Check them out this weekend, and if you really enjoy them, you can buy them at a 20% discount while they’re still in Xbox Game Pass.
Payday 3 is the latest entry in Starbreeze’s long-running first-person shooter series where players work together to pull off heists. For example, you’ll work with others to scope out a bank before donning masks, holding people hostage, stealing money, and making a quick escape from the police. It’s a tense multiplayer game where failure is likely, and I’ve had a good time with it. Admittedly, Payday 3 doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor, but as something to play free of charge on Xbox Game Pass, it’s entertaining enough. The PC and Xbox Series X/S versions of Payday 3 leave Xbox Game Pass on September 15. After that, the game will still be available for purchase on those platforms and PlayStation 5.
As its name suggests, Slime Rancher 2 is a game where you’ll be wrangling up cute slime creatures. In practice, these slimes serve as the backbone of a life sim game, as players collect and care for slimes in order to use a currency that can be used to build up their ranch. While it’s still in early access on PC and Game Preview on Xbox, it’s already a cute and cozy life sim with a charming aesthetic and engaging game loop. Like the other games on this list, Slime Rancher 2 will leave the Xbox Game Pass catalog on September 15. After that, it will remain available in forms of early access across PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5.
You guessed it! In You Suck at Parking, you suck at parking, but still have to do it under a strict time limit. It’s a fun, arcade-inspired indie game where players have to drive and park their car in really small sections of levels filled with increasingly ridiculous obstacles. The driving controls are intentionally floaty and drift-heavy and some of the parking spots are in precarious positions, so a lot of the fun comes from mastering the controls, learning the layout of each level, and reaching a parking spot as quickly as possible. It even supports multiplayer if you’re into that. The PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S versions of You Suck at Parking: Complete Edition leave Xbox Game Pass on September 15. After that, you can still pick it up on those platforms, as well as the PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.