Darlings, while Xbox is busy swinging the axe through its own ranks—1,600 jobs gone today in the biggest restructure in history—Game Pass is still dropping fresh meat for the faithful. The July wave serves up Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 on the 21st, the full Palworld 1.0 launch on the 10th, and Gears of War: Reloaded slipping in on the 9th with its remastered campaign and multiplayer goodies.[[1]](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/07/07/xbox-game-pass-july-2026-wave-1/)[[2]](https://www.wsj.com/tech/microsoft-layoffs-xbox-59e7f6df)

Palworld finally sheds its early-access skin with new locales and characters, while Tony Hawk brings the classic combo-chasing and remastered parks back to consoles, PC, and cloud. Gears Reloaded, powered by Unreal Engine and loaded with post-launch content, joins Premium tiers too. Microsoft is pushing the subscription hard even as the house burns upstairs.[[3]](https://www.thegamer.com/xbox-game-pass-july-2026/)

Community chatter on X is mostly just catalog drops and hype lists—no massive outrage, just the usual “finally 1.0” sighs and skate nostalgia. Meanwhile, the real news is upstairs: Asha Sharma’s memo called the business unhealthy and margins a disaster. Game Pass keeps feeding the beast while the bloodbath continues.[[4]](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/07/06/resetting-xbox/)