I mean they said last week they’d announce an Xbox release date, and with this announcement It could happen, some gamepass deals are made a couple if weeks before they release.
Announcing the Game of the year is joining Gamepass in a shadow drop would be big for MS.
We know Philbert was already in talks with Larian to get it released, even if it meant a compromise on the Series S feature parity. Maybe his keenness extended to GP. And 8th December is pretty late to be announcing a 2024 release date. Holding it until then for a huge immediate-release GP announcement would make sense.
Loved Steamworld Dig but it has continually been the law of diminishing returns on Steamworld games for me with every game being slightly less interesting to me than the previous one. Maybe this one bucks the trend.