Update: It was simply a bug that led to an ad incorrectly suggesting Elden Ring, GTA 5, and other games would be coming to Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft says.
In case you missed it, several games, including Elden Ring, GTA 5, and Soul Hackers 2, were spotted in store pages and ads sporting Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming branding, which led to speculation that those games would soon be added to the subscription-based catalogs.
However, in a statement to Eurogamer, Microsoft called this "a bug" and said a fix has already been rolled out.
"We're aware of a bug that incorrectly displayed some titles as available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "We rolled out a fix and this is now updated."
Original story:
Speculation around Elden Ring coming to Xbox Game Pass and XCloud has begun circulating online after the game briefly featured logos for both services on its store page.
As reported by several Twitter users, Elden Ring, along with other games such as GTA 5 and Soul Hackers 2, has been spotted with Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming branding on their store pages and in ads for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
It’s thought, though, that this could hint towards the likes of Elden Ring and GTA 5 coming to Xbox Game Pass one day soon. As pointed out by @klobrille below, it looks as though Xbox could be gearing up to bring new games to Xbox Cloud Gaming that aren’t currently part of Xbox Game Pass as well.
As a reminder, this feature was announced by Xbox in June and we are likely seeing the preparations here. https://t.co/nBduMivGuoAugust 9, 2022
The verified Twitter user, who has had talks with Xbox in the past, also shared that this could potentially be linked to a previous claim made by Microsoft, which said Game Pass Ultimate members would soon be able to "play, from the cloud, select games they already own outside the Xbox Game Pass library," and so, this branding slip-up could very well be preparations for this.
As pointed out by Twitter user @behzad_abd, though, it seems like this is more likely a bug on the Xbox storefront after they've spotted the same branding on other games like Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Dying Light 2 Stay Human, Tiny Tina's Wonderland, and Resident Evil Village.
Neither Microsoft nor Elden Ring's developer/publisher (along with any of the other games mentioned in this story) has made an official comment on the matter, so it's probably best to take this with a grain of salt for now. But here's hoping more players will be able to try out Elden Ring if it does in fact come to Xbox Game Pass in the future.
Need something to play in the meantime? Take a look at our best games to play on Xbox Game Pass list for inspiration.
