Summary
- A Short Hike and two more games are leaving Xbox Game Pass on July 31.
- A Short Hike is one of the highest-rated titles in the Xbox Game Pass library, boasting a score of 87 and a perfect 100% reviewer recommendation rate on OpenCritic.
- Train Sim World 4 and Venba are leaving the service on July 31.
Xbox Game Pass is losing A Short Hike and two more highly rated games later today, July 31. These departures will increase the total number of July 2024 Xbox Game Pass removals up to nine.
Microsoft's subscription catalog last shrunk on July 15, when Xbox Game Pass lost five titles, including The Wandering Village and Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. Prior to that, Cricket 22 left the service on July 5.
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Its next wave of departures comprises A Short Hike, Train Sim World 4, and Venba. All three titles are scheduled to leave Xbox Game Pass on July 31, most likely near the end of the day, local time. Microsoft's subscribers should, hence, still have enough time to play through at least one of them. Going by critical reception, A Short Hike is definitely the biggest highlight from this rotation; with an aggregate score of 87 and a perfect 100% reviewer recommendation rate on OpenCritic, this 2019 adventure happens to be one of the highest-rated titles currently available on Xbox Game Pass.
Xbox Game Pass Games Leaving July 31
|
Game |
Genre |
Platform(s) |
Added |
How Long To Beat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
A Short Hike |
Adventure |
Console, Cloud, PC |
August 2023 |
1.5–4.5 hours |
|
Train Sim World 4 |
Train Sim |
February 2024 |
17.5 hours |
|
|
Venba |
Puzzler |
Console, Cloud |
July 2023 |
1.5–2 hours |
The game itself tasks players with reaching the summit of the Hawk Peak Provincial Park in any way they see fit. According to HowLongtoBeat data, this task can be completed in under two hours. That's about as long as it takes to grab all the achievements in Venba, which is the second-most critically acclaimed title from the July 31 wave of departures, as underlined by its aggregate score of 81 and 85% reviewer recommendation rate on OpenCritic. Venba is a unique narrative-driven cooking game that puts players in the shoes of a 1980s Indian immigrant to Canada as she tries to recreate her family's lost recipes.
Train Sim World 4 is the only Xbox Game Pass title from the July 31 list of departures that's not feasibly beatable in a day. It's also the only one that doesn't have stellar critical scores to its name. That said, its audience reception has been fairly decent, as underlined by over 2,600 "Mostly Positive" user reviews that it currently has on Steam. Seeing how Train Sim World 4 only reached Xbox Game Pass back in February 2024, Microsoft's subscribers didn't have a lot of time to experience it.
While titles that are about to be removed from Xbox Game Pass often receive discounts ahead of their departures, that hasn't been the case with this outgoing trio. Microsoft is expected to announce the first wave of August 2024 Xbox Game Pass releases in the days ahead.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the highest tier of Microsoft's flagship game subscription service that offers over 100 game titles that you can play with a single purchase, making it one of the most outstanding value propositions of the Xbox ecosystem to date.
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