Mariachi Legends Keeps Game Pass After Missing 2026

Halberd Studios still has Mariachi Legends set as a day-one Xbox Game Pass title, now dated April 27, 2027. The Guadalajara studio first attached that promise on May 1, 2026, when the combat Metroidvania was still aimed at the same calendar year.

The May drop closed the Latin American Games Showcase. The August date, posted during Gamescom Opening Night Live, took 2026 off the table and left the Game Pass slot in place.

When Does Mariachi Legends Come to Xbox Game Pass?

Mariachi Legends is due April 27, 2027 on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox on PC, and Halberd says it will arrive day one on Xbox Game Pass. The studio first attached that promise on May 1, 2026 at the Latin American Games Showcase, when the game was still aimed at 2026. Xbox also framed it as an Xbox Play Anywhere title, so a single license covers console and PC.

Halberd’s own post on May 1 was blunt about the window. “We are beyond thrilled to announce that Mariachi Legends is officially coming DAY ONE on @XboxGamePass this year,” the studio wrote.

https://x.com/HALBERDSTUDIOS/status/2050279987396198669

The official Xbox trailer from that showcase put the same deal on the big channel: pixel combat in Mexico, Detective Pablo Cruz, a pact with Death, and Play Anywhere on Series consoles and PC.

On August 25, 2026, Halberd came back with a new trailer and a hard date. The Steam page lists April 27, 2027 as the planned release, matching the studio’s post. Game Pass day one stayed in the same message.

We have a new trailer and a final release date to share: April 27, 2027. We know another delay is disappointing news. We are taking this extra time to optimize, polish, and ensure Pablo Cruz’s journey is exactly the experience we promised you.

Halberd Studios, official announcement, August 25, 2026

“Another delay” is doing work in that sentence. Backers have been on this game since late 2023, and 2026 was already a moved window. The studio is trading a crowded holiday slate for a spring ship it is willing to put a calendar on.

THE ROAD TO APRIL 2027

1. 2021: Miguel Hasson founds Halberd Studios in Guadalajara, Jalisco.
2. March 27, 2023: 9 Years of Shadows launches on PC, the studio’s first Metroidvania.
3. November 7, 2023: The Mariachi Legends Kickstarter opens.
4. December 7, 2023: The campaign closes with MX$11,069,790 from 9,215 backers.
5. May 1, 2026: Halberd and Xbox announce day-one Game Pass for 2026, with Play Anywhere.
6. August 25, 2026: Halberd dates the game April 27, 2027 and keeps the Game Pass slot.
7. April 27, 2027: Planned launch on Xbox, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The combat footage is still doing the selling. The 2027 date sits under a mariachi suit that already looks finished in motion, which is why the slip reads as polish time rather than a project in trouble.

A Guadalajara Studio Wants the Mexican Crown

Halberd is a small Guadalajara outfit whose first game avoided a Mexican skin on purpose. Hasson, the founder, CEO, and creative director, has said local players were tired of that move on a debut, so 9 Years of Shadows went somewhere else. Mariachi Legends is the swing they saved for game two.

He put the target in plain words in 2023. The studio is alumni of Universidad Panamericana in Guadalajara, and the university has said most of the team came out of its digital animation and communication programs. The bet is cultural as much as commercial.

The best Mexican-themed game is Guacamelee, and that game is Canadian. How can that be? You couldn’t say that about Japanese games, so we felt it’s time we tried to fix that.

Miguel Hasson, CEO and creative director, Halberd Studios

DrinkBox’s luchador brawler is the comparison Halberd chose, not a critic’s. Hasson also pointed at Ninja Gaiden for the combat weight and at Castlevania for the map logic, and he said he wanted a shorter, tight game rather than a sprawling one. In a later interview he named Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, and Dead Cells as the company he wants to keep, which is a steep list for a second game.

Xbox’s LATAM showcase was the right room for that pitch. A Mexican studio showing a Mexico-set Game Pass game in a Latin American program is distribution meeting subject matter, not a random trailer slot.

La Sombra, Tarot Cards, and a Detective’s Case

You play as Pablo Cruz, a detective in the town of Santa Mascota who cuts a deal with Death. She lets him become La Sombra so he can fight the criminals moving on his hometown. In return, the Steam listing says, he has vowed to bring Madre Catrina “the man who defied her power and became immortal.”

On September 2, 2026, Halberd added a piece of that myth the May trailer did not spell out. “Madre Catrina grants Pablo the spirit of Xolotl, a spectral dog that inhabits Pablo and grants him all of his supernatural abilities. Together, they form the entity known as La Sombra,” the studio wrote. The suit is the body. The dog is the power.

Halberd’s own page puts Santa Mascota on the living-dead border, a town the copy describes as perched between those two worlds. Cruz is still a detective in it. He finds corpses, questions people, and works a streak of deaths, while shops, drinks, and side quests open as the place wakes up.

Madre Catrina also reads your fortune at the start, which sets starting circumstances and abilities. Tarot cards found later modify those powers, or flip the run with stranger rules. Hasson has called the whole package a “Mariachivania,” a coinage that tells you the studio wants Symphony of the Night in Mexico, not a skin pack on its last game.

The May trailer leaned on a folkloric “La Llorona,” sung by Yatzil Aguirre, a Mexican singer known for Disney’s Latin American dubs. Stretch goals on the Kickstarter also pulled in Norihiko Hibino, whose saxophone work on Metal Gear was already in Halberd’s orbit on 9 Years of Shadows, which carried music from Hibino and Castlevania composer Michiru Yamane. The second game is still chasing that kind of pedigree on a folk register.

The Map Flips From Day to Night

The systems are where the bet gets specific. Combat is the headline, a parry-and-finisher loop with guns, swords, whips, and magic casts, plus loot and leveling. The map is the thing that makes a second pass worth it.

Steam describes a dual map with a Day, Night, and Full Moon cycle. Sun and Moon gates open at the right hour. Night fills cleared streets with nocturnal hunters, so a path you already own is not the same path. That is the Metroidvania trick, timed to a clock instead of a new ability alone.

HOW THE RUN IS BUILT

Cooking is the odd one, and it is not flavor text. The studio wants you gathering ingredients from Mexican cuisine, making dishes to honor ancestors, and using food to push Cruz’s stats and to talk people around. A combat Metroidvania that also asks you to cook is a strange mix on paper. It is also the clearest sign they are not only chasing Ninja Gaiden in a sombrero.

Languages on Steam are English and Spanish (Latin America) for interface and subtitles, with no full audio listed for either. For a game sold as a Mexican folk story, that split is worth watching when the voice work lands.

MX$11 Million and 9,215 Backers

The money trail is public. From November 7 to December 7, 2023, 9,215 backers pledged MX$11,069,790 against a MX$900,000 goal, more than 12 times the ask. Halberd said the campaign funded in less than 24 hours.

THE KICKSTARTER LEDGER

• The goal: MX$900,000 for a 30-day campaign.
• The haul: MX$11,069,790, more than 12 times that goal.
• The room: 9,215 backers, with funding inside the first day.
• The publisher: Halberd is listing itself as developer and publisher on Steam.

That last line is the quiet change. 9 Years of Shadows went out through Freedom Games. Mariachi Legends is a Halberd release on the storefront, which means the Game Pass deal and the Steam, Epic, PlayStation, and Switch ships all sit on the same small company. Self-publishing a multi-console Metroidvania is the expensive half of the bet. Game Pass is the half that tries to pay it back in players on day one.

Backers have now waited through an original campaign, a 2026 public window, and a spring 2027 date. Halberd’s August note did not hide the irritation that causes. It asked for time to optimize and polish, and it kept the Game Pass promise attached so Xbox players are still in the first wave.

9 Years of Shadows Hit Xbox in July 2025

The first game explains why this one is launching everywhere at once. 9 Years of Shadows reached Steam on March 27, 2023, Nintendo Switch on November 9, 2023, and Xbox plus PlayStation on July 31, 2025. Xbox players got Halberd’s debut more than two years after PC.

Critics were fine, not loud. Metacritic’s PC score is 74 from 15 reviews. Steam’s English reviews sit at Mostly Positive, 76% of 1,063. The studio learned the genre in public, then started Mariachi Legends while that work was still close.

TWO HALBERD METROIDVANIAS

Hasson has said 9 Years of Shadows was the reason they stayed in Metroidvanias, because the lessons were still fresh and the form is hard to get right. Mariachi Legends is those lessons plus the Mexican theme they would not risk on a first Kickstarter. It is also a test of whether Game Pass can do what a two-year console drip could not: put a Halberd game in front of Xbox players on the morning it exists.

Play Anywhere Still Leaves Steam and PlayStation Open

Xbox is the discovery plan, not the cage. The May 2026 reveal already had Steam and the Epic Games Store next to Series consoles and Xbox on PC. The August date added PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch in the same breath as Game Pass. Play Anywhere still means a buy or a Pass download on Xbox moves with you on PC. It does not mean the game is an Xbox exclusive.

WHERE IT IS SET TO LAND

• Xbox: Series X|S and Xbox on PC, Play Anywhere, day one on Game Pass.
• Storefronts: Steam and the Epic Games Store, with Halberd as publisher.
• Other consoles: PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch on the same April 27, 2027 date.

That split is how a self-published studio hedges the Pass deal. Xbox gets the simultaneous launch Halberd could not give 9 Years of Shadows. Steam and PlayStation keep a paid audience that does not need a subscription. The May Game Pass day-one plan for the game survived the date change, which is the part Xbox players actually cash.

Steam still shows no user reviews, because there is no game to review. English and Latin American Spanish are the listed languages. The next public artifact from Halberd has been lore, not a new window. Xolotl is in the suit, the map still flips at night, and April 27, 2027 is the date on the store.