Image credit: Xbox
Microsoft has announced that Xbox Game Pass pricing will be reduced by 30% for both the Ultimate and PC tiers, effective immediately.
In an Xbox Wire blog post, Team Xbox announced that Game Pass Ultimate would drop from $29.99 to $22.99, with PC Game Pass seeing a similar price reduction from $16.49 to $13.99. The caveat here, however, is that all “future Call of Duty games” will no longer be available on the service at release, but will instead arrive “about a year later”.
Team Xbox has clarified that “existing Call of Duty titles in the library will continue to be available”, meaning you’ll still have access to the likes of Black Ops 7, Black Ops 6, Modern Warfare 3, and Modern Warfare 2. But it completely rules out getting any future installments, which were a big reason why many subscribed in the first place.
Also reiterated was the fact that Xbox Game Pass would continue to receive “major day one releases”, albeit without what was once considered the largest franchise in gaming. The news arrives following the appointment of Asha Sharma as CEO of Xbox and the teasing of Project Helix, hinting at new developments for the future of Xbox.
A bold start for the new Xbox CEO
While I was tentative about what Sharma could bring to the Xbox brand, as was the entire gaming industry and wider internet, reducing the price of a service deemed too expensive (and arguably not worthwhile) is a good step forward.
As a PC Game Pass customer myself, I’ll admit I only subscribed to the service to play Black Ops 7 competitively after attending a CDL final at DreamHack Birmingham. If Call of Duty is no longer a part of the package, effectively removing the need to invest $70 a year in an annual release, then it becomes a bitter pill to swallow.
That’s not to take away from the wider Xbox Game Pass library completely. Recent additions to the lineup include Vampire Crawlers, Replaced, Hades II, and Planet Coaster 2, so there’s plenty to play. Whether a mix of indie and AAA games like that is worth a rolling investment (playing without ownership) comes down to you. I haven’t used it much outside of CoD, but your mileage may vary. Either way, paying less to receive less; the way of the world in 2026, right?
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