Xbox has pulled back the curtain on the second half of April’s Game Pass drop, and it’s a mixed bag of cosy indies, a Vampire Survivors spin-off, a Don’t Nod sci-fi adventure, and a classic Final Fantasy landing on the service for the first time. Ten games are rolling in between 21 April and 5 May 2026, and another nine are heading out the door on 30 April.

Wave 2 isn’t quite the marquee lineup that kicked off the month with Hades 2 and Football Manager 26, but there are four Day One titles in here and a few genuinely interesting picks buried in the list. Here’s everything joining and leaving Xbox Game Pass for the rest of April 2026.

Every Game Coming To Xbox Game Pass In Late April 2026

The full wave spans Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Premium, with a handful of titles available Day One. Two games, Little Rocket Lab and Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato, are already on the service but are now expanding down to the Premium tier.

The Day One Highlights Worth Paying Attention To

Four of this wave’s titles arrive on Game Pass the same day they launch, and they cover a pretty wide stretch of genres. If you’re trying to figure out where to spend your time first, these are the ones doing the heaviest lifting.

Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard From Vampire Survivors

Vampire Crawlers is the big draw of the wave. Poncle’s follow-up to the 2022 roguelike phenomenon ditches the bullet-heaven format and turns the same chaotic, build-obsessed energy into a turn-based, deck-driven first-person dungeon crawler. You still build broken combos and explore familiar dungeons, but now it’s served up one turn at a time, either slowly and tactically or as fast as your fingers can mash buttons.

Kiln

Kiln is the one almost nobody saw coming. It’s a pottery game where you sculpt ceramics and then throw those exact creations into online arena battles as your fighter. The studio is pitching it as a celebration of creativity and destruction in equal measure, and it’s the kind of weird, hook-first indie that Game Pass tends to surface well.

Aphelion

Don’t Nod, the studio behind Jusant and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, is back with a third-person sci-fi adventure built in collaboration with the European Space Agency. You play as astronaut Ariane after a crash landing on a frozen planet, controlling both her and her injured partner Thomas as they push through shifting realities and grounded real-world science. It’s easily the most prestige-leaning entry in the wave.

Heroes Of Might & Magic: Olden Era

This one lands in Game Preview on PC only, and it’s the official prequel to the turn-based strategy series that basically invented its own subgenre. Expect grand armies, devastating spells, and both solo and multiplayer campaigns. A must-look for HOMM veterans, even in its preview state.

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Final Fantasy V Finally Joins Game Pass On 5 May

The one non-Day One headliner is Final Fantasy V, landing on 5 May via the Pixel Remaster version. It’s the first time the game has been available on Game Pass, and it arrives across Ultimate, Premium, and PC Game Pass at once. FFV has long been the cult-favourite entry of the classic run, mostly thanks to its Job system, which a lot of fans still point to as the best iteration Square Enix ever put together.

The Rest Of The Wave: Cosy Builders, FPS Throwbacks, And Multiplayer Chaos

The non-Day One additions lean heavily into comfort food and variety.

Little Rocket Lab is a cosy machine-building RPG where you play an aspiring engineer helping your family finish a rocket.

Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato is a narrative adventure set across a magical-realist South America.

TerraTech Legion takes the block-based vehicle builder formula and drops it into a bullet-heaven roguelite.

Sledding Game is a proximity-chat snow sports hangout with yetis, ragdolls, and custom animal avatars.

Trepang2 is probably the wildcard for shooter fans. It’s a gory, fast, genuinely hardcore FPS that flew under a lot of radars on release, and getting it in front of Game Pass’s audience should give it a proper second wind.

Every Game Leaving Xbox Game Pass On 30 April

Nine games are cycling out at the end of the month, so if you’ve been putting any of these off, now’s the time. Xbox is offering up to 20% off if you want to keep any of them in your library permanently.

• Citizen Sleeper (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Creatures of Ava (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Endless Legend 2 (PC)
• Goat Simulator (Cloud, Console)
• Goat Simulator Remastered (Cloud, Console, PC)
• Hunt Showdown 1896 (Cloud, Console, PC)
• NHL 24 via EA Play (Cloud, Console)
• Revenge of the Savage Planet (Cloud, Console, PC)

Citizen Sleeper is the standout departure for anyone who hasn’t played it yet. It’s one of the most acclaimed narrative RPGs of the last few years and genuinely worth clearing a weekend for before it vanishes.

What Wave 2 Says About Game Pass Right Now

Wave 1 carried the month on name recognition. Wave 2 is doing something different, stacking indies, one cult-classic JRPG, and a couple of strategic Day One bets, and letting the catalogue breadth speak for itself. With the rumoured first-party cloud-gaming tier and ongoing conversation around pricing, how Game Pass handles smaller, weirder releases like Kiln and Vampire Crawlers is arguably more revealing than which AAA names it can grab on launch day.

The post Xbox Game Pass April 2026 Wave 2 – Vampire Crawlers, Aphelion, Final Fantasy V And Every New Game appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Xbox Game Pass is stacking April 2026 with one of its strongest monthly lineups in recent memory. Headlined by Hades II finally arriving on Xbox alongside a remastered Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the service is adding over 20 titles across its various tiers this month, with a mix of heavy hitters, day one indie launches, and a few beloved classics making their Game Pass debut.

The Headline Additions

Supergiant Games’ Hades II lands on Game Pass on 14 April after spending six months as a Switch console exclusive following its full launch. The roguelike sequel, widely considered a 2025 Game of the Year contender, is now making the jump to Xbox Series X|S, Cloud, Handheld, and PC through Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass. If you missed it on Switch or PC Early Access, this is arguably the single best reason to fire up your Game Pass subscription this month.

Two days later, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered arrives on 16 April, modernising the 2006 Game of the Year with completely overhauled visuals and refined gameplay. It joins Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, with Game Pass Premium subscribers gaining access at the same time. For anyone who has been itching to revisit Cyrodiil (or experience it for the first time), this is a significant get.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) rounds out the big three on 17 April, joining Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass across Cloud, Console, and PC. The 2019 reboot remains one of the most acclaimed entries in the franchise, with its grounded campaign and fluid gunplay still holding up well.

Day One Launches Worth Watching

Beyond the marquee names, April’s lineup includes three day one Game Pass launches that deserve attention. Replaced (14 April) is a long-awaited HD-2D pixel art cyberpunk thriller set in an alternate 1980s America, blending cinematic 2.5D platforming with free-flow combat. You play as an AI trapped inside a human body, which is exactly as unsettling as it sounds.

Vampire Crawlers (21 April) comes from the creators of Vampire Survivors and reimagines that formula as a hyper turn-based, card-driven dungeon crawler. Early demo impressions suggest it is dangerously addictive, leaning into busted deck-building and world-ending combos while letting you play at whatever pace suits you.

Kiln (23 April) is Double Fine’s pottery-themed party game where you sculpt ceramic creations and then bring them into online arena battles. It is a bizarre concept that sits right in Double Fine’s wheelhouse of creative, offbeat game design.

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Every Game Coming To Xbox Game Pass In April 2026

Game Pass Essential Additions

Game Pass Essential subscribers are not left out entirely. On 8 April, Warhammer Vermintide 2 joins the Essential tier on Cloud and Console, offering four-player co-op combat against the forces of Chaos and Skaven. DayZ also becomes available on PC for Essential subscribers on the same date.

The Other Highlights You Should Not Sleep On

Tiny Bookshop (10 April) is a cosy narrative management game about running a second-hand bookshop by the sea. It originally launched on PC and Switch last August and is now making its way to Xbox. If you are after something low-stakes and charming between bigger sessions, this is the one.

The Thaumaturge (14 April) is a character-driven RPG set in a city on the brink of change, with morally ambiguous choices and turn-based combat. You use mystical powers to read emotions, command folklore-inspired demons, and navigate a story that rewards careful decision-making.

Football Manager 26 (13 April) is the first entry in the series built on the Unity engine, promising a redesigned interface and a more immersive matchday experience. Both the PC and Console versions arrive on the same day, each tailored to their respective control schemes.

FBC: Firebreak (8 April) is a cooperative first-person shooter set within the world of Control, tasking players with plunging into the Federal Bureau of Control’s strangest crises to contain otherworldly chaos.

Notable Game Updates And In-Game Benefits

Dome Keeper receives its multiplayer update on 13 April, adding four-player co-op to the tower-defence roguelike. You can now defend your dome with friends or go head-to-head in versus modes focused on survival and resource delivery.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 03 is live now, adding new maps (Beacon and Abyss), new weapons, and the Ashwood Survival Map for Zombies. EA Sports NHL 26 arrives via EA Play on 16 April, and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can claim an EA Play Supercharge Bundle until 16 May alongside a 10% discount on EA digital purchases.

Albion Online also expands to Cloud and Console on 21 April, with Game Pass subscribers unlocking an exclusive Green Knight vanity set, mount, 100,000 Fame, three days of Premium status, and 3,000 Victory Emote charges.

Games Leaving Game Pass On 15 April

As always, some titles are rotating out. Grand Theft Auto V, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, Ashen, My Little Pony: A Zephyr Heights Mystery, and the Game Preview build of Terra Invicta all leave the library on 15 April. GTA V leaving is a notable loss, and Terra Invicta is worth a look for 4X strategy fans before it goes. All departing titles are available at up to 20% off for those who want to keep them permanently.

A Month That Sets A High Bar

April 2026 is shaping up as one of Game Pass’s most compelling months in a long time. Between Hades II, Oblivion Remastered, and a string of creative indie day one launches, there is something here for practically every type of player. The real challenge this month is not finding something to play, it is finding the time.

The post Xbox Game Pass April 2026 Reveals Hades II, Oblivion Remastered, and Every New Game This Month appeared first on Shane the Gamer.