Microsoft announced today that it is altering its Xbox Game Pass tiers, rebranding its cheapest tier while also increasing the price of the Ultimate tier. The company also said it’s increasing the library size for each tier, offering them more games to play including the entire Ubisoft+ Classics library, as well as in-game benefits for titles that include Fortnite and Riot Games titles.
For starters, the “Core” tier is now the “Essential” tier, and “Standard” is now “Premium.” Premium and Essential tiers stay at their original prices, $14.99/month and $9.99/month respectively. In addition to the above alterations, Xbox also announced that Cloud Gaming has officially exited beta, with both Essential and Premium tiers getting unlimited cloud gaming as a perk. The company is also expanding the library of games available to both tiers.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate shows the greatest increase, both in price and library size. It increases in cost from $19.99 per month to $29.99, and according to the company, subscribers will now get access to over 75 day one releases each year. The library also increases to 400+ titles, with at least 45 new titles coming today. Ultimate subscribers also access Fortnite Crew, a monthly subscription service within Epic’s title, and Team Xbox says this is “just the beginning of Xbox and Epic’s work together toward an open gaming ecosystem.”
This is not the only recent price increase Microsoft has announced, as the all of the Xbox Series consoles will become more expensive this week. The Xbox Series X, in particular, goes from $599.99 to $649.99. Game Pass Ultimate last increased in price in July 2024, going from $16.99 to $19.99, without any particular upgrade to the service.