Another Title Is Leaving Game Pass Soon, And It's From An Xbox-Owned Studio

Update (Tue 10th Jan, 2023): As part of today's Xbox Game Pass roundup, Microsoft has indeed confirmed that We Happy Few is leaving the library on January 15th. The team hasn't provided any info on a potential re-release or replacement version of the game, but the announcement post does close out with a message that more Xbox Game Pass news is coming in the near future.

Original story: To add to our stop-start January 2023 for Xbox Game Pass so far, we've now spotted another leaver that's actually from an Xbox-owned developer. Compulsion Games' We Happy Few is set to leave the service "soon" according to the Game Pass app.

Now, we don't know the full details on this just yet, or the date it's set to leave, but this is an odd one. Compulsion is indeed now owned by Xbox, but at the time of We Happy Few's release, the developer was independent and the game was published by Gearbox, not Microsoft.

Considering that Gearbox published the title back in 2018, its departure is perhaps not quite as surprising as it first appears. Could we be about to see a new version of We Happy Few published by Xbox to ensure it'll return to Xbox Game Pass? It's certainly a possibility - after all, there is reportedly an Xbox showcase coming up. As far as we know, Compulsion Games (and therefore, Microsoft) owns the We Happy Few IP as of 2023.

For now, we'll have to wait and see how this one shakes out, but it does look like the game in its current form is set to leave the Game Pass library soon. Hopefully an official roundup from Microsoft clears things up for us.

Did you play this one? Surprised to see it on the leaver list? Let us know!