Is Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Worth It at $22.99 After the Call of Duty Cut?

Is Xbox Game Pass Ultimate worth $22.99 a month now that Call of Duty will not be there at launch? For anyone who does not play Call of Duty, yes, and by a wider margin than before. For Call of Duty-focused subscribers, the math barely moves. Microsoft announced the change on April 21, 2026. It takes effect the same day. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told staff that Game Pass had become "too expensive for too many players," which is itself a remarkable admission just over six months after Microsoft raised Ultimate by 50% to $29.99. The reversal comes with a second announcement that Microsoft hopes people do not notice: starting with the next Call of Duty release, new entries in the franchise will not be added to Game Pass at launch. They will arrive roughly a year later instead.

What Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at $22.99 actually costs per year

Ultimate at $22.99 a month works out to $275.88 a year, down from $359.88. That is $84 in savings annually versus the October 2025 pricing. The rest of the Game Pass lineup did not move: Essential stays at $9.99 a month ($119.88/year), Premium stays at $14.99 ($179.88/year), and PC Game Pass drops to $13.99 ($167.88/year).

The $84 saving looks clean until you factor in what is no longer included. A new Call of Duty at launch costs $69.99 at retail. For a subscriber who bought Game Pass specifically to get Call of Duty day one, the net savings is $84 minus $70, or roughly $14 a year. That is not a price cut. That is pricing rounding error dressed up as a discount.

The Game Pass Ultimate break-even math by player type

The question of whether Game Pass Ultimate pays for itself comes down to how many day-one releases a subscriber would have bought at full price anyway. At $275.88 a year and $69.99 per AAA release, Ultimate breaks even at roughly four new AAA games played per year. Ultimate markets 75-plus day-one releases per year. Most subscribers only play a fraction of those. The question is not how many are in the library. It is how many you would have bought.

A subscriber who buys four or more AAA titles at launch each year still saves money on Ultimate. 2026's first-party Xbox lineup includes Fable, Forza Horizon 6, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and Gears of War: E-Day. That is four $70 titles, $280 in retail value, roughly even with the annual Ultimate cost before factoring in the rest of the library.

Subscribers who buy only two or three AAA titles per year are paying for games they are not playing. Premium at $14.99 a month is the better fit here. Premium includes Xbox-published titles roughly a year after launch, when most casual players have moved on from the launch-weekend hype anyway.

Call of Duty-focused subscribers got the worst deal out of today's change. Ultimate no longer delivers the CoD day-one release, which for many was the single biggest value driver in the subscription. If Call of Duty was the anchor title, the service has quietly become a worse deal even at the lower price.

Why Premium at $14.99 is the underrated option

The tier most people overlook is Premium, which costs $14.99 a month or $179.88 a year. Premium includes Xbox-published games within a year of launch, not day one, and the library tops 200 titles. For anyone who plays through a backlog rather than chasing the newest releases, Premium captures most of Ultimate's value for half the price.

A subscriber who played Starfield a year after launch, finished Hellblade 2 when it was six months old, and worked through Indiana Jones and the Great Circle after the hype died down would have gotten all three on Premium. The $96-per-year savings versus Ultimate buys the next two Xbox first-party titles outright if needed.

Premium has real limits, though. Call of Duty is not on the tier at launch, EA Play and Ubisoft+ Classics are not included either, and day-one Xbox releases are not on Premium the day they ship. A subscriber who wants to play the new Halo or Fable on launch weekend needs Ultimate or needs to buy the game. Cloud streaming through Xbox Cloud Gaming does stay available across Essential, Premium, and Ultimate, which softens the gap for subscribers who game on a phone or handheld.

PC Game Pass at $13.99 is the sleeper deal

The quieter part of today's announcement is that PC Game Pass dropped from $16.49 to $13.99 a month, or $167.88 a year. PC Game Pass still includes day-one first-party releases, still includes EA Play, and still gets everything Ultimate gets on PC except cloud gaming and the console entitlements. For a gamer who plays exclusively on PC, the break-even falls to roughly 2.4 AAA day-one titles per year at $69.99 each. That is a lower bar than console Ultimate and it is the cheapest PC Game Pass has been since the October 2025 hike.

Whether the $84 saved versus Ultimate matters depends on whether you also play on console. Most PC-only subscribers will not, which makes PC Game Pass at $13.99 a stronger deal than Ultimate at $22.99 for a single-platform household. Households that game on both console and PC still want Ultimate, because Ultimate covers both. But a PC-only subscriber pays $108 more a year for Ultimate over PC Game Pass and gets nothing extra for it. If the plan is to buy the rig first, our 2026 PC build guide walks through what pairs cleanly with day-one Xbox Play Anywhere titles at real current prices.

What the Call of Duty change actually means

Call of Duty will still come to Game Pass, just not at launch. The pattern: a new CoD releases in October or November for $69.99 at retail, and the Game Pass version arrives the following holiday season, roughly 12 months later. For subscribers who complete the campaign quickly and move on, the wait costs nothing. For competitive multiplayer players who need to be in from day one, it costs $70.

Microsoft's stated reason is revenue. Xbox reportedly lost $300 million in Call of Duty sales from 2023 to 2024, with over 80 percent of all CoD sales coming from PlayStation. Putting CoD on Game Pass at launch meant Xbox and PC players skipped the $70 purchase and got the game included in their subscription. Removing day-one access is a recapture play. It is not a player-focused decision.

What to do right now

Current Ultimate subscribers who do not specifically care about Call of Duty at launch should do nothing. The price drops automatically, the library stays the same, and the annual savings is $84.

Subscribers currently paying for Ultimate primarily for Call of Duty need to reevaluate. Premium at $14.99 a month saves $96 annually versus the new Ultimate price and still includes Xbox first-party titles one year late. Adding a separate $70 Call of Duty purchase each fall costs the same as staying on Ultimate without the CoD benefit. Compare the two totals before assuming Ultimate is still the right tier.

Anyone not currently subscribed should know that Ultimate at $22.99 is the cheapest it has been in over six months. The only scenario where it is clearly the wrong choice is playing fewer than three AAA day-one titles a year, in which case Premium wins. The only scenario where it is clearly the right choice is if Call of Duty waits do not matter and three-plus Xbox first-party launches would have been full-price buys otherwise.

The first-ever Game Pass price cut is a real cut. It is just a smaller win than Microsoft wants the headline to suggest. For most non-Call of Duty subscribers, Ultimate at $22.99 is a better deal than Ultimate was at $29.99. For Call of Duty subscribers, it is roughly the same deal with a different label. More coverage of the current console landscape lives on our console desk, which tracks the hardware and subscription changes most outlets miss.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Xbox Game Pass Ultimate cost in 2026?

$22.99 per month as of April 21, 2026, down from $29.99. That works out to $275.88 a year, or $84 less than the October 2025 pricing. The cut is the first price decrease in Game Pass Ultimate's history.

Why did Microsoft cut the Game Pass Ultimate price?

New Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, who took over from Phil Spencer in February 2026, acknowledged in an internal memo that Game Pass had become "too expensive for too many players." The cut is funded in part by removing day-one Call of Duty access from Game Pass, which was the single most expensive title to include in the subscription.

Are Call of Duty games still on Xbox Game Pass?

Existing Call of Duty titles already on Game Pass stay available. Future releases (starting with the next new entry) will not launch on Game Pass and will instead be added during the following holiday season, roughly 12 months after retail release. If you want a new Call of Duty at launch, you buy it at $69.99 retail.

What is the difference between Game Pass Ultimate and Premium?

Ultimate ($22.99/month) includes day-one Xbox first-party releases, EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, cloud gaming, and online multiplayer. Premium ($14.99/month) includes Xbox-published titles about a year after launch, cloud gaming, and online multiplayer, but excludes day-one access, EA Play, and Ubisoft+ Classics. Premium is the right tier for backlog players. Ultimate is the right tier for day-one players who would otherwise buy four or more AAA titles a year.

Is PC Game Pass cheaper than Ultimate?

Yes. PC Game Pass dropped to $13.99 per month ($167.88 a year), which is $108 less than Ultimate annually. PC Game Pass includes day-one first-party releases and EA Play on PC, but excludes console entitlements and cloud gaming. For a PC-only gamer, PC Game Pass is a better deal than Ultimate.

How many games does Game Pass Ultimate need to include to be worth $22.99?

At $69.99 per AAA release, Ultimate breaks even at roughly four new full-price games per year that you would have bought anyway. Xbox markets 75-plus day-one releases per year, but most subscribers only play a fraction. The real question is not library size, it is how many of those games you would have bought at retail. If the honest answer is four or more, Ultimate clears the fee. If it is two or three, Premium saves money.