Xbox is finally phasing out Games with Gold for Game Pass Core

Xbox Games with Gold subscribers have watched and waited for the last few years, waiting for the day when their middling free games every month would finally be put out of its misery.

As of September 14th, Games with Gold and Live Gold will be no more.

Instead, Xbox is offering Game Pass Core, a $10/month (or $60/year) subscription that gives subscribers access to a collection of over 25 games for launch. Once it’s officially rolled out, new games will be added 2-3 times per year, according to Microsoft.

Games at launch in September include Among Us, Doom Eternal, Fallout 4, Gears 5, Psychonauts 2, and State of Decay 2. They haven’t announced all of the titles that will be live at the launch, so we’ll be on the lookout for when they announce the rest of them before the launch.

Game Pass Core will also include access to online multiplayer on consoles as well as various deals and discounts. What it doesn’t include is access to the full Game Pass library or day-one releases like the hotly anticipated Starfield.

Honestly, this has been a long time coming for this offering. When Sony revamped the PlayStation Plus last year, gamers figured it was only a matter of time before Microsoft did the same for Games with Gold, especially with Game Pass’s popularity. We just didn’t think it would take them this long to pull the trigger.

It’s also not that surprising of an announcement since Microsoft recently raised the prices for Xbox Game Pass to $11/month and Game Pass Ultimate to $17/month.

If you’re a current Games with Gold subscriber, everything will adjust automatically. You don’t need to change anything.

So is this better than getting two random Xbox 360 games for free every month that were released in 2009? Unless you have some seriously heavy nostalgia for obscure 360 games… we’d wager yes. In the long run, this will be better for subscribers.

We will also have to wait and see just what games they plan on adding to it throughout the year. Will you get access to something like Starfield within its first year of release? Or will it focus more on games that were released in the last five years that are still relatively popular and have an online multiplayer?

There are still plenty of questions we have, and we’ll have to wait and see how things shake out once the new subscription tier launches in September.