Xbox Game Pass May update: Conan Exiles and Maneater added, Kingdom Hearts leaves
Xbox Game Pass will lose a beloved JRPG series this month
Titles come and go from Xbox Game Pass every month, and May is no exception. This time, however, it's hard to shake the feeling that the stuff we're losing is a little more substantial than the stuff we're getting in return — even though we'll have at least one brand-new title before the month is out. Xbox Game Pass subscribers can expect to see cult favorites Conan Exiles and Maneater before by the end of May, as well as the brand-new competitive multiplayer title Knockout City. But this is also their last chance to play the expansive Kingdom Hearts series.
Information comes from the official Xbox Wire blog, where community lead Megan Spurr outlined 15 new games coming to Xbox Game Pass, as well as seven games receiving touch control support, five games with new DLC packs, four games with new perks, two games with new Xbox Game Pass quests and six games leaving the service.
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Arguably the biggest news here is that Xbox Game Pass will no longer host the Kingdom Hearts series. For years, fans have been able to play the confusingly named Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix, as well as Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. Without going into the extremely convoluted history of Kingdom Hearts, these remasters include the bulk of the Kingdom Hearts series, save for Kingdom Hearts III and a few handheld spinoffs.
This is probably the opposite of what Kingdom Hearts hopefuls wanted to hear. After all, the series just came to PC a few months back. As such, it's possible that Xbox Game Pass could have bundled PC versions of the game into its subscription service. Perhaps we'll see that happen at some point in the future. In the meantime, however, if you want to try Kingdom Hearts for yourself, now is the time. You'll never finish the whole series before it leaves on the 31st, but you'll at least get a sense of whether you like the games enough to buy them outright.
The selection of new games is arguably a little thin, focusing on indie and mid-budget fare like The Wild At Heart (a beautiful adventure/strategy game that should appeal to Pikmin fans) and MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries.
Two fan favorites are present and accounted for, however: Conan Exiles and Maneater. The former is a multiplayer survival game set in Robert E. Howard's beloved Hyborian Age. The latter is an oddball "sharkPG," which combines open-world exploration and character-building with, well, being a gigantic shark.
Beyond that, it's worth checking the blog post to see if any of the new titles appeal to you. I personally recommend playing SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest on the PC — not because it's a great game, necessarily, but because it's catnip to a very particular type of RPG/RTS fan.
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Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. After hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.