Do you need PS Plus or Xbox Live Gold to play Fall Guys?

Fall Guys Ratchet and Clank event — (Image credit: Mediatonic / Insomniac)

Do you need PS Plus to play Fall Guys, or Xbox Live Gold or even a Nintendo Switch Online membership? Now that Fall Guys has reinvented itself as a free-to-play game on all mainstream consoles, it's less clear if you need the respective subscription services for online play from each console - but we can tell you no, you do not need PS Plus to play Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, nor any other online service like Xbox Live Gold, Nintendo Online, or even Game Pass. We'll go into more detail about Fall Guys, PS Plus, and all the other subscription elements below, as well as why this exception to multiplayer gaming is the way it is.

Do you need PS Plus, Xbox Live Gold or Nintendo Switch Online to play Fall Guys?

Fall Guys Nintendo Switch — (Image credit: Mediatonic)

As mentioned, no, to play Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, players do not need PS Plus, Xbox Live Gold or a Nintendo Switch Online membership, which might come as a surprise to anybody who's used to seeing these as barriers to online gaming and most forms of multiplayer.

The basic logic behind this exception is that now that Fall Guys has adopted a free-to-play model, they've absolutely made sure that there's no financial barriers preventing people from getting into the game itself (though there's plenty to spend money on once you're in there, obviously). This is something we've seen apply to many other free-to-play multiplayer games as well, such as Fortnite, Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodhunt or COD: Warzone. Instead, PS Plus and equivalent services are more often used to lock off multiplayer content behind games that have more to offer than just that.

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Is Fall Guys on Xbox Game Pass?

Fall Guys Halo — (Image credit: Mediatonic / Microsoft)

While it might have been the case when it still cost money, now that Fall Guys is free-to-play we're seeing Fall Guys Xbox One and Nintendo Switch ports, Game Pass on Xbox doesn't enter the equation much. Or, to put it more simply, Fall Guys isn't on Xbox Game Pass because it doesn't need to be - the game is free either way, so it doesn't need to be tied to a subscription service.

That being said, there is one benefit: people who own Fall Guys and have Xbox Game Pass will get free cosmetics every month for at least three months. So while you don't need Game Pass to play it, you do get perks if you are a subscriber.

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.