8.2 / 10

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Xbox Game Pass

Buy at Xbox

Pros

• Cloud streaming brings games to you without a console
• Stream your own games across multiple tiers
• Huge catalog of games

Cons

• Games leave the service monthly
• Day 1 releases only available on two tiers
• Prices have inflated in recent years and could continue to do so

Xbox Game Pass is an all-you-can-play video game subscription service that has evolved beyond its console-bound origins and can now deliver high-profile, so-called AAA titles to you without a console. But after Microsoft raised the prices of some Game Pass tiers in October, you might be wondering whether the service is still worth it. 

While Microsoft’s game-streaming service is more expensive than when it first hit the market, even at $30 per month for the top tier, it still offers compelling value. The monthly price of Game Pass still costs less than the price of a new AAA game, while giving you a smorgasbord of titles to play. You can also play on various devices, like your phone, tablet, streaming device or PC, meaning you’re not tethered to a computer or console. 

But there are notable caveats: You’ll need a strong internet connection to take full advantage of the service. Day 1 releases (being able to play a new game the day it goes on sale) are restricted to two tiers, and because you don’t actually own any of your games, they could leave the service at any time.

I’ve tested Xbox Game Pass on various devices, scrutinized each plan and streamed games on Wi-Fi as well as over wireless 5G networks to see how well the service performs in different circumstances. Cloud streaming feels as close to on-device gaming as it can, but there are some instances when I wouldn’t recommend it — particularly if your internet speeds struggle.

Still, Xbox Game Pass has something for every gamer — its collection of features and games earns the service as a whole an Editors’ Choice Award. 

Xbox Game Pass offers plans for various gamers and budgets

The four Game Pass plans are Essential, Premium, PC Game Pass and Ultimate. Most tiers share a handful of foundational features. Access to online multiplayer is one of those features, so every subscriber can battle their friends and others online.

Generally, the higher your subscription cost, the more titles a Game Pass plan offers. Only two plans deliver Day 1 releases and EA Play access. Microsoft regularly adds games to each Game Pass plan on a monthly basis, except for the Essential tier.

While PC Game Pass looks like a nice middle-ground plan between Game Pass Premium and Ultimate, as the name implies, it’s only for playing PC titles on Windows PC devices. This plan is unique in its limited device support. Every other plan supports console, PC and cloud gaming.

Otherwise, each Game Pass plan has its own benefits, but most plans include baseline features and games.

What you should know about each Game Pass plan

Game Pass offers something for every kind of gamer, but one plan might be a better fit for you than others depending on your gaming habits. Here’s a breakdown of which plan is likely best for you, based on those habits.

Best for online multiplayer-focused gamers: Game Pass Essential ($10 per month)

Game Pass Essential is likely all you need if you mostly play online multiplayer games, like Halo or Overwatch. You’re paying for access to online multiplayer, but you also get the ability to play games on PC, cloud and console platforms with this plan. 

This plan could also be good for you if you own a lot of games outright and want to play them on multiple devices, like your PC or phone, and don’t want to buy a new Xbox console. Microsoft lets you stream some owned games via Xbox Cloud Gaming, so Essential could be a good option for you.

You might not be shocked to learn that Game Pass Essential has a relatively weak library compared to higher tiers. Some standout games on this tier are Fallout 4, Control and Hades. Those games were released in 2015, 2019 and 2020, respectively, so you shouldn’t expect many newer games on this tier.

Best for most gamers: Game Pass Premium ($15 per month)

Game Pass Premium is good for gamers who don’t mind waiting a little longer to play some games. You don’t get access to Day 1 releases, but those games are usually added to this tier within a year of their release. If you’re like me, you might not notice this lag because you likely have a backlog of games you want to play — I still haven’t played Blasphemous 2, which came out in 2023.

This is a good option for most gamers, and given my schedule with a young child, I’d choose this plan. I can no longer sit down and play games as soon as they come out, and even if I prioritize those games, it might take me weeks — or months — to finish. At that point, it’s more cost-effective to buy the game outright rather than subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate. But with Premium, I can at least try some newer games first before I decide if I want to own them or not.

While Game Pass Premium doesn’t have as many games as PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate, it has a surprising number of games that were relatively new that I’ve been meaning to play, like Blue Prince and Frostpunk 2.

Best for PC-exclusive gamers: PC Game Pass ($16.49 per month)

Console gamers need not apply. PC Game Pass includes Day 1 releases and EA Play, which bolster this tier’s game library and guarantees there’s always something new to play.

Where this plan falters is that you’ll need to maintain a powerful gaming rig to play new AAA games at their peak. This plan is limited by the power of your PC. If you have a solid gaming desktop or laptop, this is the plan for you. If you don’t have a powerful gaming computer or don’t plan to keep upgrading your machine, you should consider a different plan and stream games to your computer.

Best for voracious gamers: Game Pass Ultimate ($30 per month)

This Game Pass tier gives you the most benefits — but the perks primarily benefit people who enjoy live-service games like Fortnite and who churn through new games at a speedy clip. You get EA Play and Ubisoft Plus Classics, plus over 75 Day 1 releases a year — which averages out to be at least one new game a week — with this plan. With over 500 games in this tier’s library, you can access thousands of hours of gaming. This tier also includes Fortnite Crew, which gives you access to a host of goodies, like the current Battle Pass, Rocket Pass Premium and 1,000 V-Bucks each month. 

Despite those benefits, this tier may not be worth it to most people. The people who would get the most value from this plan are folks who have a lot of free time to play different games, or anyone who wants to play all the latest games and plans to burn through them each month. Even if you play just one new $70 game a month, you could save up to $480 a year with this plan. But if you mostly play free-to-play online multiplayer games like Overwatch and don’t really play new games, or it takes you a few months to work through a game like the upcoming Gears of War E-Day, you might be better off subscribing to a cheaper plan or buying the games outright.

Ultimate has over 800 games at the time of this writing. And with over 75 Day 1 games added a year, this library can feel unnecessarily large. If, like me, you don’t have a lot of time to game because of other responsibilities, this game library might seem unwieldy. Between a full-time job, raising a kid and sleeping, I’m struggling now to find the time to play a handful of games, so playing 75 new games a year is just unrealistic for me. I might subscribe to Ultimate for a month or two to play a Day 1 release that I’m really interested in, like the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved, but otherwise, this is just way too many games for my schedule. 

On paper, Game Pass Ultimate offers the most value since you get 75 Day 1 releases a year, EA Play ($6 a month separately), Ubisoft Plus Classics ($8 a month), Fortnite Crew ($12 a month) and hundreds of other games in the game library. However, if you don’t take advantage of those benefits, I’d recommend subscribing to Game Pass Premium.

Most Game Pass plans provide a lot of useful benefits

Here are the baseline features you can find across Game Pass Essential, Premium, PC Game Pass and Ultimate, unless otherwise noted.

You can game across a variety of devices

Whether you subscribe to Game Pass Essential, Premium or Ultimate, you can game on a console, PC and over the cloud on any number of supported devices. For instance, you can play games on your phone, tablet, smart TV, streaming device and handheld game consoles like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. Because of its broad device compatibility, you don’t need an Xbox console to game across any of these Game Pass tiers. 

Some games, like Enter the Gungeon, are optimized to support playing with a touchscreen on handheld devices, so you don’t need a controller. However, you’ll need a compatible controller if you use Game Pass on something like a smart TV or an Amazon Fire TV Stick. If you need a gamepad, there are some great Xbox Game Pass controllers available, including the Backbone One or Pro and the Razer Kishi V3 Pro.

However, PC Game Pass subscribers are limited to playing on desktops, laptops or handheld PCs and can’t stream games to play on other devices.

You can stream games you own

As part of Game Pass’s cloud gaming, Microsoft also allows Essential, Premium and Ultimate subscribers to stream many owned games. So if you bought a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 — which is not currently on any Game Pass tier — you can play it on any compatible device, like your phone or smart TV. However, PC Game Pass subscribers can’t stream their own games because they can’t access cloud gaming.

Because you’re streaming a game via the cloud, you don’t need to have a high-end gaming PC to play graphics-intensive games. But you might run into other issues when streaming games. If your internet speeds are slow or your ping is high, your game’s performance will likely suffer, especially if it’s a graphically complex game. And your game streaming experience will generally vary as your internet bandwidth fluctuates.

I streamed games on my MacBook via Chrome, iPhone 16 Pro and even my Xbox Series S. After a short loading screen, I was able to play Call of Duty, Ball x Pit and more without downloading the game to my device. It felt like I was playing the game locally, even winning a few free-for-all matches in Call of Duty from my iPhone. 

But when I tried to stream Cyberpunk 2077 to my MacBook via Chrome while my wife was working on the same Wi-Fi, I didn’t think the game was going to start because I saw a black screen for a few seconds before it launched. Once the game started, it took a beat for some character models to load. 

Conversely, when streaming the much less demanding Dead Cells to my iPhone, I didn’t notice any longer load times or latency issues than if I had the game downloaded on my device. I played the game on my home Wi-Fi while my wife was working, and I was also streaming some music in addition to the game. 

When I disconnected from my Wi-Fi and played Dead Cells on my 5G network, the game’s quality took a slight dip. Character movements were a little choppy and slow, but I could have played the game if I was determined.

I played Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on my cellular network too, and the game felt like a Xbox 360 port as the network strangled the graphics and frame rate. I feel like if I really concentrated, I could have manually counted how many frames I was seeing per minute.

You can play popular games on all tiers

Some popular but less recent gaming franchises are available across all four tiers of Game Pass. For example, Control, Fallout 4 and Halo 5: Guardians are all playable on every Game Pass tier. So if you want to play — or replay — Control before the sequel arrives this year, you can fire up the original with Game Pass Essential, the cheapest plan.

Game Pass offers in-game benefits and rewards across the board

All Game Pass subscribers can also access in-game benefits for some free-to-play games. For example, subscribers can unlock six hero skins and 30 Mythic Prisms in Overwatch, two operator skins in Call of Duty Warzone and access to every current and future champion in League of Legends.

Subscribers can also redeem Rewards points in the Xbox Store to get games and add-ons, and Premium and Ultimate subscribers get point multipliers and more points per dollar spent than other tiers. 

Every Game Pass tier can also get at least 20% off select games from the Game Pass library, while Essential, Premium and Ultimate subscribers can get up to 50% off select games. So if you see one of your favorite Game Pass games is leaving the service soon, or you just really like the game and want to own it, subscribers could buy those games at a discount.

Granted, the in-game benefits aren’t for everyone, since they’re focused on free-to-play, live-service games. If you don’t play those, these benefits mean nothing to you. Not everyone will have the patience to acquire and redeem Rewards points, either, but everyone likes saving money when buying games outright. 

Xbox Game Pass isn’t your only gaming service option

Xbox Game Pass, GeForce Now and PlayStation Plus are three popular gaming services. Each offers different benefits, like potential game libraries and cloud streaming capabilities, so here’s who would get the most value from each subscription.

• Game Pass: Most gamers. Because of Xbox Game Pass’s hardware agnosticism, and each plan’s library of games — especially the larger libraries included with Game Pass Premium and Ultimate — it’s easy to recommend Game Pass to every gamer. You can play games on your home console, a laptop, smartphone and many other devices, like smart TVs.
• PS Plus: Playstation power users. PlayStation Plus has plenty of games to offer subscribers, as long as those subscribers are in PlayStation’s ecosystem. If you are, you can access over 600 games as of the time of this writing, with new games added to the service every month. However, you don’t get as many Day 1 releases as Game Pass, and options for streaming games to play on other devices are more limited.
• GeForce Now: PC gamers who want to play on other devices. If you have a PC Game Pass subscription — or have a large library of PC games you want to stream to other devices — GeForce Now lets you stream PC games from Game Pass or your own collection to other devices. The subscription limits you to 100 hours of game streaming per month, but you can buy additional playtime if needed.

Game Pass is a great value for all gamers

Paying for a few months of Xbox Game Pass is cheaper than buying a game outright in many instances, making it an excellent value. Chances are, you can play on devices you already have — like your PC, phone, tablet or streaming device, meaning you may not need to invest in expensive hardware up front.

While Ultimate may not be the best value like it used to be, it’s hard to beat the cost-effectiveness of Game Pass overall. In some cases, the monthly subscription to Game Pass Premium costs significantly less than certain games offered on that tier, like Cyberpunk 2077, making it a better value. 

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service is still a great value for gamers, regardless of whether your Xbox is a console, or you’re using a phone, streaming device or another gadget to play.