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July 21, 2026

The Planet Crafter (95% on Steam) hits Game Pass today

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The Planet Crafter, Miju Games' chill no-combat terraforming survival sim with an Overwhelmingly Positive 95% rating across 66,962 Steam reviews, launches on Xbox Series X|S, Windows Store, and Game Pass (Ultimate, Premium, PC) today, July 21, as July's solo Game Pass drop. PS Plus Extra and Premium add Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora plus two PS2 classics today, Steam's Train Fest is live with verified historic lows on Loco Motive and Transport Fever 2, GTA Online's free week on PS5 and Xbox ends today, and the forward calendar. Every end date checked.

Game Pass: The Planet Crafter arrives today

The Planet Crafter, from Miju Games, launches on Xbox Series X|S, the Windows Store, and Game Pass today, July 21, as Xbox Wire confirmed July 20. It is a chill terraforming survival sim with no enemies, no timers, and no combat: you land on a hostile planet, gather resources, build a base, then heat it, thicken the atmosphere, and watch life return, solo or with up to 8 friends in online co-op. Xbox Play Anywhere support carries progress between console and PC.

The hook is the review consensus. The PC version, fully released in April 2024 after two years in Early Access, sits at Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam, 95% of 66,962 total reviews, with a Steambase Player Score of 96. That is unusually high for a survival crafting game, and the common thread in player reviews is the absence of pressure, the genre's usual anxiety replaced by a slow, satisfying gardening loop.

It joins Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and PC tiers across Cloud, console, and PC, free with an active subscription. Otherwise it sells separately on Steam and PlayStation 5 (the PS5 version also launches today at retail). This is July's solo mid-month drop; Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, originally slated for July 21, was pulled from the lineup over licensing earlier this month with no new date. No end date, this is a catalog addition, not a limited drop.

PS Plus: Avatar and two PS2 classics land today

Sony's staggered July Game Catalog rollout continues today, July 21, with four titles going live globally for PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers, per the PlayStation Blog.

Extra tier gets Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (PS5, Ubisoft Massive's open-world Na'vi action RPG, Metacritic 76, mixed reviews, a gorgeous but formulaic Ubisoft open world) and Firefighting Simulator: Ignite (PS5, a 4-player co-op firefighter sim built in Unreal Engine 5). Premium tier adds two PS2 classics: Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (Metacritic 84, a telekinesis-powered cult classic from Midway) and Indigo Prophecy (Metacritic 84, Quantic Dream's first interactive drama, released as Fahrenheit outside North America).

A second wave follows July 28: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind, Dying Light, Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, and Snow Bros. Wonderland. Rise of the Ronin (Team Ninja's 19th-century Japan action RPG) already joined Extra on July 15. Separately, the Essential tier's July monthly games, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, For the King II, and CrossCode, remain claimable through August 3. Catalog titles also rotate out through July as the new wave arrives, so check your library before assuming an older Extra game is still available.

Steam: Train Fest is live, with verified historic lows

Steam's Train Fest, which opened Monday July 20 at 10am PT, runs through Monday July 27 with discounts across rail sims, station builders, transport managers, and tycoons. Yesterday's issue could only name likely participants, the fest had not gone live yet. Now that it has, the historic lows are verifiable.

Standouts marked as historic lows by GG.deals: Loco Motive, a comedic point-and-click mystery set aboard the Reuss Express, is $11.24 (55% off, lowest ever); Transport Fever 2, the transport management sim, is $10.79 (40% off, lowest ever); Overcrowd: A Commute 'Em Up, a station-management sim, is $3.99 (80% off, lowest ever); Last Train Home, a Czech Legion survival RPG, is $9.74 (35% off, lowest ever). PC Gamer flags Train Simulator Classic's base game at $6 (80% off), with its infamous 790-piece DLC catalog cut from a combined $15,621 to roughly $6,934, the annual buying window for anyone waiting on specific route DLC.

Browse the full sale at the Steam Trains category page. Ends Monday July 27. The next Steam themed fest is Cyberpunk Fest, August 3 to 10.

Epic: the current free pair runs through Thursday

Epic's weekly free games are still Echo Generation: Midnight Edition (OpenCritic 77 Strong, Cococucumber's 90s-style turn-based RPG, normally $24.99) and Luto (OpenCritic 77, Metacritic 79, Broken Bird Games' P.T.-style psychological horror, normally $19.99), free to keep through Thursday July 23 at 8am PT (Polygon). Foretales, a narrative card adventure normally $19.99 and never free before, takes over solo on July 23, running through July 30 and ending the multi-month two-freebies-per-week streak (GameRant). The standalone surprise freebie Together After Dark (4-player co-op found-footage horror, Mixed Steam reviews) remains free to keep through July 27.

Today's deadlines

Forward calendar

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