Xbox is lowering the price of Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, effective today, April 21. In return, future Call of Duty games will no longer be on either plan at launch.
Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 (26.99€) to $22.99 (20.99€) a month, and PC Game Pass falls to $13.99 (12.99€). The announcement on Xbox Wire covers only these two plans, and prices may vary by region.
Starting this year, new Call of Duty games will skip Game Pass on release day. Xbox says they will be added to Ultimate and PC Game Pass during the following holiday season, about a year later. Call of Duty games already in the library stay, and Ultimate subscribers keep hundreds of other games, online multiplayer on console and major releases on day one.
For the last few annual releases, Xbox and PC players could jump into a new Call of Duty on launch day through Game Pass, while PlayStation players paid full price. According to Engadget, Call of Duty will now be the only games from Xbox's own studios that skip Game Pass on release day. I'm glad to see a price go down for once, especially at a time when so many things are getting more expensive. For players who skip Call of Duty, that's a fair trade. For anyone who plays each new release at launch, it's a step backward.
Xbox says the change responds to a lot of player feedback. Xbox chief Asha Sharma wrote on X that Ultimate "has become too expensive for too many players." Kotaku writes that many players blamed the day-one Call of Duty releases for the price increases of recent years. A week earlier, The Verge reported on an internal memo in which Sharma reportedly said Game Pass had become too expensive.
Xbox has not announced a separate plan or add-on that would include new Call of Duty games at launch. The announcement also names no game or date for the first one affected.
