Thronefall Game Pass date, and the DLC it leaves out

Most games arrive on Game Pass quietly. Thronefall arrives on 11 November with a bill attached, because the expansion that lands the same day is not part of the deal. The base game is the subscription title; Craaghelm is paid DLC that requires it. That makes the Thronefall Game Pass date less of a gift than it looks, and worth thinking about for a few minutes before 11 November rather than after.

One number first. Reading our own daily record on 2 November 2026, the lowest price we logged for Thronefall between 26 September and 26 October 2026 was $4.63, at Gameseal on 4 October. Across those twenty-five readings the cheapest listing anywhere never climbed above $5.89 — a spread of about a dollar and a quarter across a month. That is the context the subscription question sits in.

Days are spent placing walls, mines and barracks. Everything you build has to survive the night to pay out the next morning. (Official Steam screenshot)

What the Thronefall Game Pass date actually covers

Pure Xbox has it as a day one console release on 11 November, listed for Series X|S, PC and Cloud. That is the significant part for console players: GrizzlyGames' strategy game has spent two years as a PC title, and this is its first appearance on Xbox at all. PlayStation 5 gets it the same day, though obviously not through Game Pass.

For PC players the date changes less. Thronefall has been on Steam since 11 October 2024, and our record shows it trading well below its list price for most of the autumn. If you subscribe already, 11 November costs you nothing and the decision is easy. If you do not, the subscription is the more expensive route to this one game by a wide margin.

The official trailer for the base game, here on GameTrailers rather than the developer's own channel. It shows the day-night cycle better than any description does.

Craaghelm is paid DLC, and it arrives the same day

Steam lists Craaghelm as DLC with an 11 November 2026 date and the base game as a requirement. Its own description promises new maps, weapons, perks, mutators, heroes and units — in other words, more of every category the base game is built from rather than a new mode bolted on. No price is published for it yet.

This is the part that catches people out with Game Pass. A subscription that includes a game does not include its DLC, and when an expansion launches on the same day as the Game Pass arrival, the two get talked about as one event. They are not. On 11 November a subscriber gets the base game and a storefront page for Craaghelm; a buyer who already owns the base game gets the same storefront page and nothing else to pay for.

Night is the test. If the Castle Center falls, the run is over, and the sun only rises once every attacker is dead. (Official Steam screenshot)

What you are actually getting

Thronefall is tower defence with the fiddliness removed and a character put in the middle of it. Days are a placement puzzle: houses, bridges, gold mines, harbours, mills and fields pay out gold each morning, but only if they are still standing, so every economic building you push outward is also a liability you have to cover. Walls, barricades, shrines and towers hold the line. Barracks, archery ranges and hero quarters give you knights, berserks, crossbowmen, fire archers and the occasional golem or mage.

Then night falls and you ride into it yourself as a Warrior King with one of nine unlockable weapons, from a battleaxe to a blood wand. Ten maps run from the mountains of Nordfels to Wildbach, each with its own terrain, weather and enemy mix. Over fifty perks unlock across those runs, five to a loadout, with optional mutators if the maps stop being frightening.

Later maps ask you to defend more ground with the same attention. Spreading the economy out is how you afford troops and how you lose. (Official Steam screenshot)

It reviews extremely well. Our data has it at 96% positive from 23,781 Steam reviews, with the recent window flat at the same figure — a game that has not drifted in reputation since release. It is also short-session by design, which is the honest difference between this and the bigger strategy games it gets compared to. A map is twenty minutes, not an evening.

Buy it or wait nine days?

If you have a subscription, wait. There is nothing to think about: the base game is included, and our guide to the Game Pass tiers covers which of them carry it.

If you do not, this is a poor reason to start one. Our record has the cheapest listing for Thronefall sitting in a narrow band through October, and a month of subscription costs more than that band's top end. Taking a subscription for one cheap indie strategy game is the wrong trade, and whether PC Game Pass is worth it at all turns on how many titles you would actually play, not on one.

There is a third case worth naming. If you want Craaghelm, you need the base game, and a subscription satisfies that requirement only for as long as you keep subscribing. Buying the base game outright and then buying the expansion is the only combination that leaves you owning both.

The Craaghelm announcement trailer, from publisher Mythwright's own channel.

Where the cheap listings come from

Almost all of the low end of Thronefall's offer list is key resellers rather than official stores, which is why the gap between the cheapest listing and Steam is as wide as it is. That is a normal shape for a two-year-old indie game and it comes with the normal caveats — our study of keyshop versus official pricing sets out how much of that discount is real and what the trade-off is. Check the live figures on the Thronefall page rather than any number quoted in an article, including this one.

You fight in your own defence rather than watching it happen, which is what separates this from most tower defence. (Official Steam screenshot)

If the loop sounds too thin

Thronefall's own Steam page points at Kingdom: Two Crowns and Against the Storm as neighbours, and both are fair comparisons with more to them. Kingdom: Two Crowns is slower and stranger, a side-on kingdom that you ride across rather than look down on, and it is on Game Pass already. Against the Storm is the one to take if the economic half is what appeals — it is a city builder with roguelite structure and far more systems to hold in your head. They Are Billions goes the other way, keeping the wave defence but making it enormous and unforgiving. Our roundup of discounted strategy games has more in this range.

The bottom line

Subscribers should simply wait for 11 November and play it. Everyone else should ignore the Game Pass news entirely, because it does not change what this game costs or whether it is good — and our October readings put it in a narrow, low band with very little movement, which is a price that rewards patience rather than urgency. The thing actually worth watching on 11 November is Craaghelm, because that is the only part of the day that will ask you for money.