Game Pass Starter Has a Catch Console Players Won't Like

Fifty games for free sounds great until you read the fine print. Discord and Xbox officially launched their Game Pass Starter Edition bundle yesterday, giving Nitro subscribers at the $9.99 tier access to a slimmed-down Game Pass library at no extra cost. The library includes titles like Fallout 4, Stardew Valley, Gears 5, Doom Eternal, Deep Rock Galactic, and Dishonored 2, plus 10 hours of cloud gaming per month.

But buried in the Starter Edition's terms and conditions is a detail that changes the value proposition entirely for console players: online multiplayer is not included. This is the first Game Pass tier to strip out console multiplayer access. PC players are unaffected, since online multiplayer on PC has never required a separate subscription. If you're on Xbox and hoping to use this as your primary Game Pass plan, you can browse the catalogue and play single-player, but firing up co-op in Deep Rock Galactic or jumping into DayZ servers will require a higher tier.

I covered the Nitro and Game Pass partnership earlier this week, and the headline value is still solid. Getting 50+ games bundled into a $10 subscription you're already paying for is a perk, especially on PC where there's no multiplayer restriction. But the console limitation makes this feel less like a real Game Pass tier and more like a demo reel designed to funnel people toward a full subscription. I suspect that's exactly the point.

Discord's senior director of product Lu Zhang framed the update as part of a larger push to turn Nitro into a full gaming membership. "We've always thought of Nitro as a way to make Discord better," the company wrote on its blog. "Now we want it to be a gaming membership that makes everything around it better too." Discord has also added discovery features that let users see when friends are playing a Game Pass title and launch it directly from their activity feed.

On the Xbox side, Game Pass subscribers will start receiving Discord perks later this month, including 250 Discord Orbs monthly, a 1.2x Orbs bonus on completed Quests, and automatic Discord Shop discounts. No exact date has been given for when those benefits go live.