Xbox has revealed the first wave of August additions to Game Pass, and the headliner is the Gears of War: E-Day Early Access Open Beta, which starts August 6 for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. The beta introduces Horde Siege, a 12-player PvE evolution of the series’ wave survival mode, with larger maps and bigger battles than any previous Gears horde. Two games join the service today: the Heretic + Hexen restoration and Game Freak’s Beast of Reincarnation, the latter available day one.
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The Gears of War: E-Day beta runs from August 6 through the build-up to the game’s full release, and Microsoft’s official multiplayer overview details how the mode works. Horde Siege puts three squads of four players on sprawling Kalona maps, where persistent battlefields carry over equipment and fortifications left behind by earlier squads. The beta features the “Golden Quarter” map plus four classes, each with its own loadout, progression, and a Tactical Gear ability on a cooldown. Pre-orders also grant early access to the open beta on August 6, matching the Game Pass benefit.
The rest of August Wave 1 fills out the month with a mix of day-one launches, sequels, and Game Preview updates. PowerWash Simulator 2 arrives August 6 with new locations, equipment, and a co-op-friendly take on the original’s satisfying cleanup loop. Date Everything!, a sandbox dating sim with 100 fully voice-acted characters, lands August 11, the same day as Bounty Star and the Grounded 2 Game Preview update “Into The Abyss.” Ball x Pit follows August 12, then Cricket 26, Mio: Memories in Orbit, and the Sandustry Game Preview on August 13. Egging On, a physics platformer about escaping a henhouse as a fragile egg, rounds out the wave on August 18. Monsters are Coming!, a tower-survivor roguelite in which players protect an ever-moving city from unrelenting hordes, also arrives August 6, gathering resources and fortifying defenses between waves.
The first additions are already live: Heretic + Hexen arrives as an enhanced restoration of the two spell-casting shooters that shaped the genre, with expanded accessibility across more platforms and languages, while Beast of Reincarnation marks Game Freak’s latest original, an action RPG blending real-time and turn-based combat around a one-person, one-dog premise. EA Sports Madden NFL 27 gets a 10-hour EA Play trial starting August 6, and Call of Duty: Warzone subscribers can claim Game Pass Pack 7 with operator skins, weapon blueprints, and a finishing move. On the way out, four games leave Game Pass on August 15: Menace (Game Preview), Atlas Fallen, Aliens: Firesteam Elite, and Firewatch, all discounted for subscribers who want to keep them.
The wave continues a busy Game Pass summer that has already seen day-one arrivals like Halo: Campaign Evolved land in July. For subscribers who want to try the new Horde Siege mode before launch, the August 6 beta window is the first chance to see how Gears of War: E-Day handles its largest-ever multiplayer maps, and to test the class system that will carry into the full game. With three Horde Siege maps planned for launch and more in seasonal updates, the beta offers a representative slice of the mode’s ambitions rather than a stripped-down demo.
