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Grand Theft Auto V makes its surprise return to Xbox Game Pass today

By Giovanni Colantonio July 5, 2023

A man drives away in a boat with stolen money in Grand Theft Auto 5 art. — Rockstar Games

Xbox Game Pass is kicking off July with a major surprise, as Grand Theft Auto V has returned to the service. Rockstar’s sales juggernaut leads an otherwise light month for Game Pass, which brings Capcom’s Exoprimal as a day-one launch.

This isn’t the first time that Grand Theft Auto V has been on Game Pass. It was previously on the service circa 2021 but removed from it that August. Rockstar has a history of putting its games on Game Pass for a brief window before pulling it, as it also did with Red Dead Redemption 2.

Fortunately for fans, Grand Theft Auto V is now back on both Cloud and Xbox consoles right now. Players can access both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game. The only catch is that it’s not available for PC players.

Game Pass has a handful of other games coming in July. Dinosaur shooter Exoprimal launches on the platform on July 14, and factory automation game Techtonica will get a day-one release on July 18. Otherwise, this month’s line-up features a few hidden gems. Here’s the full list of games coming to Game Pass in July.

Grand Theft Auto V (Console, Cloud) — Available now
Sword and Fairy: Together Forever (Console, PC, Cloud) — Available now
MxPixel 3 (Console, PC, Cloud — July 6
Common’hood (Console, Cloud, PC) — July 11
Insurgency: Sandstorm (PC) — July 11
Exoprimal (Cloud, PC, Console) — July 14
Techtonica (Cloud, PC, Console) — July 18
The Cave (Cloud, Console) — July 18

The tradeoff here is that three games are leaving the platform on July 15: Exo One, Spelunky 2, and Paw Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls. Make sure to dive into those this month before they’re gone.

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Giovanni Colantonio

Section Editor, Gaming

Giovanni is a writer and video producer focusing on happenings in the video game industry. He has contributed stories to…

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