All You Need to Know About Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Announced back in 2019, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate program is Microsoft’s latest evolution of its popular service. One of the big requests from subscribers was a single program to combine subscriptions for Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold, and that’s exactly what you get with Game Pass Ultimate.

It comes with a little sprinkling of something for PC and mobile gamers bundled in for good measure. Here’s everything you need to know about Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

What is Xbox Game Pass Ultimate?

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the combination of two current programs: Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold. Subscribers to Ultimate will have access to both for one monthly subscription cost instead of two separate ones. Additionally, the newer Xbox Game Pass for PC subscription is also included with Game Pass Ultimate.

Xbox Game Pass is Microsoft’s subscription service that offers complete access to a huge library of games covering both Xbox Series X/S and backward-compatible titles. You can download these to your console to play in full for as long as you’re a paying subscriber or the games in question remain in the Game Pass library.

Better yet, if a Game Pass title also supports Xbox Play Anywhere, you get access to play those on your PC, as well, as part of your subscription, even if you don’t have Game Pass Ultimate. The PC-specific Game Pass subscription has its own list of games, some of which cross over with the console program on account of Xbox Play Anywhere. But many are exclusive to PC, such as Age of Empires and Microsoft Flight Simulator.
If you choose to buy any game you play in Game Pass Ultimate, you’ll get a 10% discount on it while you’re a member.

Xbox Live Gold provides you with a number of perks. The first is access to online multiplayer in any Xbox One game, so if you want to play with friends you need Gold. More than that, though, Gold gives you four free games every month, two Xbox One titles and two older games from Xbox and Xbox 360 that are backward compatible and are yours to keep.

Gold subscribers also get exclusive discounts every single week on games from the Microsoft Store, as well as additional discounts during special promotional periods.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate provides access to all of this under one easy-to-manage subscription.

Do you need to cancel Xbox Game Pass or Live Gold to get Ultimate?

When you sign up to Ultimate, any other current subscriptions are migrated across and automatically canceled for you. Any pre-paid codes will be automatically converted to Game Pass Ultimate subscription time based on the chart above.

EA Play on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Microsoft and EA have been close for a long time now, with EA Access (the former name of EA Play) once exclusive on Xbox One. While the exclusivity is no more, what’s about to happen is something nobody expected.

EA Play, a subscription service on its own that allows access to a selection of EA’s vast back catalog of games, will become part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass for PC. So with one single subscription to Game Pass Ultimate, you’ll not only have access to the Game Pass Library on both console and PC and Cloud Gaming, but soon EA’s subscription service, too.

If you didn’t already think that Game Pass Ultimate is the best value package in gaming, this pretty much seals it.