Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Adds a Day-One Title, Plus a Festive Platformer

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has added Ball x Pit and The Grinch: Christmas Adventure to its content catalog. These arrivals mark the 55th and 56th additions to the service in October 2025, bringing the total number of this year's Xbox Game Pass Ultimate releases to 178.

Ball x Pit is a survival roguelite designed by indie developer Kenny Sun. It tasks players with procuring balls that are required for descending further into what appears to be a bottomless monster pit, which is all that was left following the fall of "Ballbylon" in the game's lore. While the numbers-go-up gameplay that survival roguelikes and roguelites are known for is at the core of the experience, Ball x Pit also features robust base-building mechanics.

Ball x Pit Reaches Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

The genre-blending survival roguelike was released for PC and consoles on October 15, at 12pm ET. Ball x Pit also debuted as a day-one Xbox Game Pass title, available to both PC- and Ultimate-tier subscribers. It comes with Xbox Cloud Gaming support, allowing XGP users to stream it on a compatible device. The game's Steam demo has amassed over 1,500 "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews since launching on Valve's storefront in early June 2025.

The Grinch: Christmas Adventures Now Available on All Non-Essential Game Pass Tiers

Ball x Pit has materialized on Xbox Game Pass alongside The Grinch: Christmas Adventures. Developed by British studio Casual Brothers, the 2023 platformer bolsters the selection of festive titles on Microsoft's subscription service just ahead of the holiday season. It serves as a faithful interactive retelling of Dr. Seuss's classic story, offering a combination of platforming, puzzle-solving, and stealth gameplay. The Grinch: Christmas Adventures is the second Casual Brothers-developed title to reach Microsoft's service in 2025, arriving four months after Barbie Project Friendship joined Xbox Game Pass. Much like the Barbie title that preceded it, the game offers both single-player and couch co-op modes.

3 More Titles Join Xbox Game Pass Premium

The October 15 catalog expansion also includes three additions to the recently introduced Xbox Game Pass Premium library, which replaced the XGP Standard membership at the beginning of the month. The middle tier of the service now offers Eternal Strands, He Is Coming, and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, all of which debuted on XGP Ultimate earlier in 2025.

New and Upcoming Xbox Game Pass Games With Confirmed Release Dates

Over half a dozen more titles are currently confirmed to be coming to Xbox Game Pass in the second half of October 2025. Several of them are first-party Xbox games, namely Double Fine's Keeper and Obsidian Entertainment's The Outer Worlds 2, scheduled to arrive on October 17 and October 29, respectively.