The Last Caretaker is heading to Xbox Game Pass when it exits early access. Developer Channel37 confirmed at Gamescom 2026 that the survival game will hit version 1.0 in Spring 2027 and land on Xbox Game Pass for PC and Xbox platforms on day one.
The game has been in early access since November 2025, and the numbers tell you people are sticking around. Channel37 has sold over 400,000 copies, and players average almost 50 hours exploring the game's flooded world. That's a strong foundation heading into a full release.
What the 1.0 launch actually means
Here's the thing: 1.0 isn't the finish line. Channel37 co-founder and creative director Antti Ilvessuo put it plainly: "Early Access is giving us something more valuable than a fixed list of features to finish. It is giving us hundreds of thousands of people living inside the game and showing us what matters. Spring is 1.0, but it's not where we put the tools down; rather, it's the next chapter."
The team has committed to continuing development past launch, with new content, systems, locations, stories, fixes, and unspecified surprises still planned. So Game Pass subscribers who pick it up day one won't be walking into an abandoned product.
The road to Spring 2027
The roadmap Channel37 presented at Gamescom is packed. The next major stop is Update 6.0, codenamed "The Future," targeting PC in early October 2026. Beyond that, the roadmap lists several more updates before 1.0, each promising new systems, locations, progression changes, and story developments. The final three updates on the roadmap have coded names that the team is leaving fans to decipher.
The game itself puts players in control of an android stranded at the end of the world, navigating a planet swallowed by rising oceans. The few remaining fragments of civilization are yours to find, survive, and build on. Seven significant updates have already expanded that world since early access launched, and the team shows no signs of slowing down.
What Game Pass means for the player count
Getting onto Xbox Game Pass at launch is a real shot at a much wider audience. The Last Caretaker is the kind of game that benefits from word of mouth, and Game Pass subscribers tend to try things they'd never buy outright. For a survival game sitting at 400,000 sales after roughly nine months in early access, that exposure could push it into a very different conversation.
If you want a head start before the 1.0 release, the game is already available on PC via Steam. The guide collection for The Last Caretaker has everything you need to get up to speed before the full launch, and you can find broader gaming guides on GAMES.GG if you're jumping into something new alongside it.
