The Outer Worlds 2 is out today and finally available to play for anyone who didn’t pay for the early access edition. That includes tons of Game Pass subscribers across Xbox Series X/S and PC. There’s just one problem: A sudden Microsoft Azure outage is causing issues as another slice of the internet faces unexpected downtime.
“Starting at approximately 16:00 UTC, we began experiencing Azure Front Door issues resulting in a loss of availability of some services,” the company announced on Wednesday. “In addition, customers may experience issues accessing the Azure Portal.” Microsoft is currently blaming a “configuration change error” for the downtime.
Customers impacted include Xbox and its first-party game studios, who rely on Azure systems to distribute their games digitally across console and PC.
The issue affects Shared Worlds and Online mode in Grounded and Grounded 2. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and will update players when we have more information.
— Obsidian Support (@OESupport) October 29, 2025
“Due to an ongoing Azure service outage, The Outer Worlds 2 may be temporarily unavailable to purchase or install on Xbox Series X|S, the Xbox app on PC, and with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass,” developer Obsidian Entertainment wrote on X. “We’re working with Microsoft to resolve the issue and will update players when we have more information.”
“The pre-installed game just vanished from my Xbox App today,” replied one fan. “How’s that even possible?” Another user on Steam wrote, “I can’t launch my copy on Game Pass. So it’s not working even if you have it installed. Just says something about not being able to sign you in.” Ahhh, the power of the cloud!
This hiccup comes a week after the major AWS outage that briefly brought down major games like Fortnite and Roblox. It seems bad that just three companies are responsible for the modern infrastructure of the internet. Ah, well, nevertheless.
Update 10/29/2025, 6:07 p.m. ET: Microsoft says Xbox should be functioning normally again now.
Users should once again be able to access the Xbox Store, manage their accounts, launch Game Streaming sessions across all platforms, and access https://t.co/6DxzuMLtkS. Xbox Support services are continuing to recover. We'll provide updates here and on https://t.co/SoIhwJAdqC as…
— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) October 29, 2025
