If you want to play Xbox Game Pass games like The Outer Worlds 2 or Black Ops 7 on day one, you're going to have to pay a full $30 a month for Ultimate

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But hey, at least we're getting PC games on the lower tiers now, right?

The Outer Worlds 2
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has just revamped the tiers of Xbox Game Pass, and while there are some new features among the various levels of the subscription, it's mostly bad news out here. Ultimate is getting dramatically more expensive, and it remains the only way to get access to the primary benefit of Game Pass: day one access to brand-new games on console.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – or, as I prefer to call it, the only tier of Game Pass that really matters – is now $30 a month, up from its previously monthly fee of $20. This is still the only way the subscription provides day one access to major games like The Outer Worlds 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 on console, though PC Game Pass (now $16,49, up from $12 per month) still offers that benefit to mouse and keyboard warriors.

Microsoft presents the price hike on Game Pass Ultimate as "reflecting the expanded catalog, new partner benefits, and upgraded cloud gaming experience," but it reads a lot more like the reverse – that those benefits are coming in an effort to justify the massive price hike. According to a survey shared by game industry analyst Mat Piscatella, the cost of Xbox Game Pass is the top reason former members dropped their subscription, and the new look of these tiers sure doesn't appear too attractive to me.

$30 a month for Game Pass Ultimate is a HEFTY price jump. According to Circana's Q3 2025 Future of Video Games Custom Survey, the top reasons cited by those in the US who have unsubscribed from Game Pass were:

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-10-02T19:24:18.264Z

Xbox president says Game Pass is profitable and good for creators, despite alleged division over the subscription model.

Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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