Free Play Days – EA Sports Madden NFL 27, Borderlands 4, F1 25 2026 Season Edition, Dustborn, and More

Xbox’s latest Free Play Days slate runs from Thursday, September 10 through Sunday, September 13, giving Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and Essential members access to Borderlands 4, F1 25 2026 Season Edition, Surviving Mars: Relaunched, and CarX Drift Racing Online. Dustborn is included separately with a two-hour trial and a limited-time discount over the same dates.

EA Sports Madden NFL 27 is the outlier here: it’s free for all Xbox members to try, with no Game Pass subscription required. That makes it a broader acquisition test than the usual member-only promotion, and it also puts a spotlight on how a sports game can use a short trial to drive engagement into a full-priced purchase.

For developers, the interesting part is less the weekend itself and more the mix of access models. There’s a member-gated free-play window, a timed trial, and a title open to everyone, all paired with discounts and retained achievements/Gamerscore. That combination is a practical reminder of how platform promotions can be used to reduce friction while preserving conversion paths.

The lineup also spans very different genres and business models: a premium shooter, a racing sim, a strategy relaunch with DLC, an indie narrative game, and a yearly sports release. That breadth makes it a decent snapshot of how Xbox is using promotional visibility to support both new launches and older catalog titles.