Highlights
- Microsoft surprises Xbox Game Pass subscribers with highly-rated indie game Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition, adding to it to the lineup without prior announcement.
- Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition includes the base game and all major content updates.
- Spiritfarer returns to Xbox Game Pass after a year's absence, giving fans another chance to play the beloved indie game.
Without any kind of prior announcement, Microsoft has updated its Xbox Game Pass lineup to include Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition, one of the highest-rated video games of 2020. It's very rare for Microsoft to add new games to Xbox Game Pass as a surprise, though it has happened a few other times in the past.
For the most part, Xbox Game Pass runs on a fairly predictable schedule. Sometime near the beginning of the month, Microsoft will pull the curtain back on the new Xbox Game Pass games coming in the next couple of weeks. This way, gamers know exactly when to expect new games on the service. On occasion, though, Microsoft has added games to Xbox Game Pass as a surprise. The most recent time this happened was the end of August when Microsoft added Call of the Wild: The Angler to Xbox Game Pass without an announcement.
Now Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition is available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers across PC, Xbox consoles, and the cloud. For the uninitiated, Spiritfarer is a critically-acclaimed indie game where players have to lead spirits to the afterlife. Spiritfarer is known for its emotional narrative, cozy atmosphere, co-op support, and engaging management mechanics. It is one of the highest-rated games of 2020 and therefore should make a fantastic addition to the Xbox Game Pass lineup for anyone that has yet to play it.
Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition includes the base game as well as the three big content updates that were released for the beloved indie post-launch. This gives Spiritfarer fans who played the game at launch but never experienced the updates the chance to revisit the game and interact with new spirits and other new content, making its surprise addition to Game Pass exciting for newcomers and longtime fans alike.
As it so happens, this isn't the first time Spiritfarer was on Xbox Game Pass. Spiritfarer was a day one Xbox Game Pass game back in 2020, and it remained available on the subscription service until August 2022. Spiritfarer's re-introduction to Xbox Game Pass means that the popular indie was only gone for about a year, but it's unclear exactly how long it will remain available this time around. Anyone interested should definitely make sure to play Spiritfarer now that it's back on Xbox Game Pass.
Fans of Spiritfarer should know that the next title from Thunder Lotus Games, the 33-player co-op game 33 Immortals, is also coming to Xbox Game Pass. It will launch as a day one game for the service at some point in 2024.