Microsoft dropped the big news on us back in January that it would be removing the Xbox Live Gold requirement for free-to-play games on Xbox in the near future, and now it's slowly being put into practice.
Xbox Insiders in the Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead rings are beginning to test this as of today, and the update will also remove the Xbox Live Gold requirement for the Looking 4 Groups and Party Chat features on Xbox.
This ultimately means that in the near future, every Xbox owner will be able to play games such as Fortnite, Apex Legends and Rocket League without having to be subscribed to anything, which is definitely a welcome addition.
There's no word on when this will be rolling out to a wider group of players outside of the Xbox Insider rings, but we'd venture that as long as everything goes smoothly, it'll only be a matter of weeks.
Excited about this? Give us your thoughts down in the comments section below.
[source news.xbox.com]
Comments 11
Gonna sub for other online play for sure e.g. Halo, Rainbow 6, Sea of Thieves and more. Absolutely great option for more budget conscious gamers & kids as they can have a Series S and play Fortnite or whatever with their buddies. It only helps expand the ecosystem & drive people to think about upgrading to play online for more exciting AAA offerings. Or they will drop paying for online play altogether (which would be great!)
I read this as being multiplayer games will all be free on Xbox? I though these games were already free to play. Am confused. Doesn’t bother me as I have GPU but could have sworn these were free already otherwise they technically aren’t free to play games?
Lol what's there to test, to see if it's free enough
@StonyKL You had to have Xbox Live in order to play them online. Now you don't.
@uptownsoul yeah. Microsoft screwed up and this is them trying to throw us a bone. I already have 3 years of game pass ultimate under my belt, so it doesn’t affect me, but I guess it’s good. I think they just need to do away with requiring Gold for MP. That’s so… 2001.
This is awesome news, Xbox is definitely showing that they are the best place to game on..
Is it really necessary to beta test making free to play games actually ya know ... Free to play 🙈
@UltimateOtaku91
They test everything. Like free party chat, for instance.
@UltimateOtaku91 It’s a whole new different API and software backend logic altogether. System level changes always have go through rigorous load testing to prevent loopholes and bugs. You’ve no f’kin idea don’t you? 😂
@Senua I ain't gonna lie, no I don't 😂
Despite the fact that they keep saying they're commited to the Live Gold system, this is definitely a further step into the "all-free-multiplayer" mode.
Because they already announced that their best IP, which is off course HALO, is going the free to play road, for its multiplayer part.
And we all know that there is a really huge bunch of Xbox players who just pay the Gold fee to play Halo and only that.
Before we know it, the next Gears will be announced with a free to play multiplayer mode.
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