With a recent jump in price being the latest of many in the last few years, Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service might finally be reaching the point where it’s not worthwhile for all Xbox owners. Though they’ve gone from strength to strength in terms of the variety of games on offer on the service, as well as the different ways to play and perks available to subscribers, Microsoft are now charging $29.99 per month for the Game Pass Ultimate subscription.
That’s a frankly jaw-dropping rise of 50% on its previous price! With that in mind, if you’re only playing card games on Game Pass, is it still worth the cost? Let’s find out.
What Card Games Are Available via Game Pass?
At the time of writing, you can play Balatro, Inscryption, Monster Train, Monster Train 2, Slay the Spire, Uno and Wildfrost as part of your Game Pass subscription. Note that there are three tiers of Game Pass available: Essential, Premium and Ultimate, and that some games are only available on certain tiers. Let’s check out which one’s you’ll have access to on each tier:
| Game | Game Pass Essential ($9.99) | Game Pass Premium ($14.99) | Game Pass Ultimate ($29.99) |
| Balatro | No | Yes | Yes |
| Inscryption | No | Yes | Yes |
| Monster Train | No | Yes | Yes |
| Monster Train 2 | No | No | Yes |
| Slay the Spire | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Uno | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Wildfrost | No | Yes | Yes |
You can see from that list that you’ll only be missing out on Monster Train 2 if you opt for Premium over Ultimate, but of course if you’re taking advantage of other features of Game Pass, not just the card games, then Ultimate may be worth the monthly cost.
However, it’s hard to argue with the selection of card games you get on Premium, and of course it’s not as if you’re limited only to these card games for your $14.99 per month!
Essential does drastically reduce the card games you’ll have available; just Slay the Spire and Uno are available if you pay $9.99 per month for your subscription.
Is Game Pass Worth It if You’re Only Playing Card Games?
This is more difficult to justify; if you’re only looking to play card games on your Xbox, you’re probably better off just buying the ones you want and not paying a monthly subscription for them. It’s true that the majority of the card games available for Game Pass are among the very best in the genre (Uno is fine, but doesn’t really need to be a digital game, and Wildfrost was just too punishing for us poor souls here at Card Gamer), but with such a small number of them, they aren’t worth the full cost of a subscription on their own, in our humble opinion.
Check out our review of Balatro, and our review of another digital card game which is available on Xbox (though not on Game Pass): Into the Restless Ruins.
