Xbox Game Pass has pretty much changed the landscape of gaming, with many believing that’s for the better.
Like PlayStation Plus and Nintendo Switch Online, it offers a vast collection of full games for Xbox consoles – Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One – that can be downloaded and played to your heart’s desire for a monthly fee.
And, if you upgrade to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, you also get additional Xbox games, access to EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, Fortnite Crew, PC Game Pass with 100s of additional Windows titles, and Xbox’s own Cloud Gaming service, Xbox Cloud Gaming, so you can play most titles over the internet without having to download them first. They can be played on mobile devices, Fire TV Sticks and Smart TVs from the likes of Samsung and LG, too.
Oh, and it’s worth noting that you’ll need an Xbox Game Pass subscription to play online games on your console anyway, so if you love a multiplayer skirmish or two, you’ll need one of the below.
Here then is everything you need to know about Xbox Game Pass, how much it’ll cost you and some of the games you can enjoy.
How much is Xbox Game Pass?
Xbox Game Pass is available in three price plans with PC Game Pass available separate, too. Most of them offer discounts on the Xbox Store as well as the below:
- Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is priced at £16.99 / $19.99 per month and gives you the most amount of included games and benefits. You get over 400 Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Xbox 360 or original Xbox games to play at no extra cost – this includes day one releases. In addition, EA Play and Ubisoft+ Classics memberships are included, with extra games from each of the publishers, plus a Fortnite Crew subscription for in-game items in the hugely popular multiplayer shooter. Xbox Cloud Gaming is also part of Ultimate, so you can play most of the library over the cloud instead, on Xbox, mobile, smart TVs and Amazon Fire TV Sticks. And you have PC Game Pass thrown in for good measure.
- Xbox Game Pass Premium is £10.99 / $13.99 per month and you get access to a slightly smaller library of free games plus Xbox Cloud Gaming. However, you don’t get EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics or Fortnite Crew, nor do you get day one releases (games arrive about a year after release). You do get Xbox Cloud Gaming though, so this is a good option if you more often play your games remotely.
- Xbox Game Pass Essential is just £6.99 / $9.99 per month, although the games list is much truncated – down to around 50 curated titles. It does give you access to Xbox Cloud Gaming, but again with fewer games to play (apart from those you own).
- PC Game Pass is £10.99 / $13.99 per month and is for PC owners – on desktop, laptop or handheld. It gives you more than 300 PC games to download and enjoy, EA Play and day one releases. You don’t get Xbox Cloud Gaming with this option though.
- There is one final option – a cut-down version of Xbox Game Pass is also available as a free benefit to Discord Nitro members. For £9.49 / $9.99 per month, you get all the benefits of Discord Nitro, including custom profiles for the gaming community chat service, 500MB uploads, and HD video streaming, plus more than 50 Xbox and PC games to download and enjoy.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 1-month membership
Get a whole month’s worth of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate in voucher form. A three-month code is also available.
£16.99Sadly, although Xbox trialled a Family & Friends plan in select countries a few years ago, including Ireland, New Zealand, and Sweden, it has opted not to continue with that option. It would have enabled up to five people to be added to the same membership for a single monthly fee, but Xbox under its new CEO is now heading in a different direction.
What games are available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate?
Xbox regularly releases new games that are available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming – many of them are added for Premium members too.
Only Ultimate and PC Game Pass members can access day one releases, such as (most recently) Forza Horizon 6 and Mixtape. However, many of them also arrive on Xbox Game Pass Premium a year later.
The Xbox Game Pass library is vast and varied and offers a great selection of recent games and great titles of yesteryear, including (for retro gaming fans) Retro Classics – a collection of more than 50 emulated originals from the days of the Atari 2600 and beyond. It’s powered by the tech behind Antstream Arcade, so is cloud based, but with zero latency and instant access.
Also, as Xbox owns multiple publishers and studios, including Bethesda, Double Fine, and of course, Activision Blizzard, their games can almost always be found on Xbox Game Pass – even on day one for Ultimate and PC members. The only exception going forward will be Call of Duty games, with new iterations no longer being added on release day as a trade-off for a recent price drop for an Ultimate subscription.
The COD games on the platform already – all the way up to Black Ops 7 – will remain.
How to get Xbox Game Pass
It’s easy to sign up for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (or other Game Pass) membership. You can do so on your Xbox Series X/S or Xbox One console, or alternatively head to a dedicated page through a mobile browser. Just head here if you are in the US, or here for those in the UK.
You will need a Microsoft account, but you’re likely to already have one if you already own an Xbox and play games on it.
If you want to access Xbox Game Pass through Discord Nitro, just head to the dedicated page on Discord’s site.
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