Microsoft is killing Xbox Live Gold, the decades-long online membership for Xbox multiplayer games. While paid multiplayer games will require an online subscription to play, the original service has been axed in favour of Xbox Game Pass Core.
Leaked in a now-deleted Windows Central report, via PureXbox, the death of the Xbox Live branding is planned to be launched on September 1st. The new Game Pass Core service will be the exact same price as the original online service - $9.99 - but will remove a number of features that fans have come to expect from the service.
The arrival of Xbox Game Pass Core will result in the death of Xbox’s Games with Gold service. A bonus for Live subscribers, the Games with Gold bonus feature gave fans a number of free games every month, that could be kept for as long as your subscription was active.
In the face of this change, all redeemed Games with Gold titles will be kept by subscribers as the service is fazed out. While no new free games will be given every month, there will be a basic Game Pass library to play around with instead.
Game Pass Core will have around 25 titles in a revolving library for subscribers to play every month. According to the leak, these titles will include first-party Xbox and Bethesda games and a number of limited-time third-party additions. The leaked games are as follows:
- Among Us
- Descenders
- Dishonored 2
- DOOM Eternal
- Fable Anniversary
- Fallout 4
- Fallout 76
- Forza Horizon 4
- Gears 5
- Grounded
- Halo 5: Guardians
- Halo Wars 2
- Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
- Human Fall Flat
- INSIDE
- Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- Psychonauts 2
- State of Decay 2
- Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited.
Game Pass Core will also reportedly retain the 10% sales price on Xbox Game Pass titles seen in other forms of the membership. Replacing the Deals with Gold service, this could be a better value proposition for subscribers of the service.
The death of Xbox Live Gold does leave only PlayStation with a service of fee monthly games with PlayStation Plus. In comparison, Nintendo also has a collection of static older titles for players to have fun with.