I have said it before and I will say it again. If it wasn't for Game Pass, I would not be the gamer I am today. There is a great chance if I had not subscribed to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate back in 2019, I might not even be talking about games today. I originally subscribed to Game Pass after I noticed a couple of YouTube clips where they talked about getting three years of Game Pass for only a dollar. Well, you were actually spending $181 to get three years of Game Pass by converting your three years of Gold membership into Game Pass Ultimate. Still, it was a pretty solid deal as the regular price for three years of Game Pass Ultimate was $540.
I didn't go for three years of Game Pass Ultimate. Instead, I went for one year of Game Pass Ultimate for $61. At the time, I was scared to spend over $100 on gaming subscription services or any gaming item unless it was a brand new console, so I settled for one year of Game Pass. Once I subscribed, I noticed a lot of amazing action-adventure AAA games on the service. I had access to playing Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Metro Exodus, Devil May Cry 5, Batman Arkham Knight (I had already beaten it back then but still an amazing game), Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and then there were many small ads to remind Game Pass subscribers of the upcoming Gears 5 in September 2019. With my Game Pass subscription, not only did I have access to play Gears 5 day one, I had access to play it four days before its release date.
What Game Pass was offering was pretty ridiculous. I liked it so much that I ended up adding two more years to my Game Pass Ultimate subscription. Even though it was the price and amazing library of games that initially caught my attention, the main reason I ended up adding two more years to my subscription was that Xbox had made a commitment to add all of their future first-party games to Game Pass on their release day. Meaning games like Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Fable, Perfect Dark, Avowed, State of Decay 3, Forza Motorsport, Starfield, and all the games that are currently being developed by their first-party studios, will be available on Game Pass as soon as they are available to be purchased and played. Being able to play all these brand new first-party games along with a solid selection of third-party action-adventure games for $181 for the first three years, and then $15 a month, was a steal in my opinion.
My first three years with Game Pass were excellent. The Xbox team continued the trend of adding awesome games to the service until the start of 2022 (there were some great additions to Game Pass in 2022, but 2019-2021 additions were just better). Not only were they adding great games to the service, but the marketing they did for those fantastic additions on Twitter and other social media platforms had everyone talking about those games and Game Pass. My favorite reveals of Game Pass additions were Doom Eternal in October 2020 and MLB The Show 21 in April 2021. They were pretty creative with announcing those additions.
For the past year or so, at the start of every month, Xbox just posts the same picture in the same format to show six to ten upcoming games. The only time this year they surprised us with a Game Pass addition was at the start of the year with the announcement of Hi-Fi Rush. That one came out of nowhere and its reveal was memorable. Every other gamer was talking about Hi-Fi Rush for about two to three weeks.
Lately, in my honest opinion, Game Pass hasn't been good. Have you heard any buzz for FIST? What about The Wandering Village? Figment 2? Oh, surely we were talking about the hype reveal of Maquette coming to Game Pass? Yes, I know it sounds like I'm hating on these indie games and I will admit they are not for me. However, you can't sell Game Pass to most gamers by just adding indie games, NFS Unbound (solid game), and GTA V (ten-year-old game) from May to August. Yes, Exoprimal by Capcom was also added to the library, but it is Capcom's worst game of the year.
I know many of you are enjoying the most recent additions to the Game Pass library, but some of us have been buying and playing games like Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Street Fighter 6, Diablo IV, and Remnant II. All those games are available on Xbox but none of them are on Game Pass. There is a chance that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor might be added to the Game Pass library before the end of the year as it is an EA game, and newly released EA games go to EA Play / Game Pass library after six to eight months. But still, it has been a pretty okay 2023 so far for Game Pass this year.
The first three months of 2023 were dope as we got Hi-Fi: Rush (must play) and Monster Hunter Rise in January, Atomic Heart in February, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty in March (second day of March). April could also be considered a decent month for Game Pass since we got Ghostwire: Tokyo and The Last Case of Benedict Fox, but that's about it. May, June, July, and August are turning out to be very forgettable months for Game Pass. There hasn't been a game since May that has caught my attention. Yes, Game Pass is gonna take off in September with Starfield and Lies of P, but we really went four months and got just one solid relatively new AAA game in NFS Unbound.
Note: Redfall was supposed to be the big summer game on Game Pass, but we all know how that turned out.
Now, I'm just gonna talk about where I stand today with Game Pass. As of this very moment, I'm considering letting go of my Game Pass Ultimate and just subscribing to Game Pass Core, but I still wanna wait until the end of the year before I make my decision. Besides Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Hi-Fi Rush, and Ghostwire Tokyo, I haven't really used and enjoyed Game Pass as much. I did use it to play and complete Mass Effect: Legendary Edition last month, and I had a good time with it.
So I haven't really been using Game Pass this year and I have been spending a lot of money on buying games that I really wanna play. I have already bought and played the heck out of Resident Evil 4 Remake, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and Street Fighter 6. A couple of days ago, I ordered Remnant II, Dead Space Remake, and The Callisto Protocol. I did get myself Hogwarts Legacy earlier, but I ended up returning it since it wasn't for me. So yes, I have been buying lots of games this year and will continue to buy more in September, October, and November. Really makes no sense for me to be paying for Game Pass Ultimate as I am really not using it or saving any money with it. In fact, I'm actually giving away money to Xbox just for online access.
Good thing I am making decent money at work and I can afford to buy all these games. I was making good money back in 2019 and 2020 when I first subscribed to Game Pass, but at the time, I was very cautious about spending money on games since I didn't know if I was going to like them or not. As I mentioned at the start, Game Pass helped me discover gaming and become the gamer I am today. But now I'm questioning if I should continue using Game Pass Ultimate as I can buy any game on any given day.
I wanted to share my thoughts about this situation and I wanted to see if some of you Xbox and Game Pass fans have the same sentiment or not. I am a huge Xbox and Game Pass supporter, but if you are not big on indie games and mostly play AAA action-adventure games like I do, then you have to admit that Game Pass has been pretty mediocre for about four to five months now. Also, to be clear, I'm not saying that all indie games are boring or bad. I do like some of them. Some of my favorites are The Artful Escape, The Ascent, Hades, and Road 96. However, I won't go out of my way to play these games on a daily basis.
I'm still excited for Game Pass this fall as we have Starfield, Lies of P, and Forza Motorsport coming up. We may have some surprise reveals in November and December, but let's see.
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