Those with Xbox Game Pass Premium and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC are losing access to the subscription service’s best game, and the departure is coming at the worst possible time. The game in question boasts a whopping 97 on Metacritic, which makes it one of the highest-rated games ever released. Unlike most games with this rating level, it penetrated the mainstream market and paired this critical success with unprecedented mainstream success. To this end, it is the second-best-selling game of all time with 225 million copies sold. This means most Xbox Game Pass subscribers have probably not only played the game in question, but have owned it at one point or another on the current consoles, the prior generation, or the generation before that, as this is a multi-generational release.
While most Xbox Game Pass subscribers have probably played Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V, its newly announced departure from the subscription service on April 15 is horrible timing because GTA 6 is out later this year. In the build-up to the release, many will likely revisit GTA 5 to prepare for the release or simply to quench their desire for some Grand Theft Auto. Whatever the case, now GTA 5 won’t be available via Xbox Game Pass at all in the build-up to the release of GTA 6, which is unfortunate timing, though certainly not accidentally timing. The good news is that GTA 5 has been added more than once, so it will presumably return in the future, but this return will not happen before the release of GTA 6. As a result, there are now no GTA games available via Xbox Game Pass, making this departure sting a bit more.
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Highest-Rated Xbox Game Pass Game
As some may know, there is actually another 97-rated Xbox Game Pass that isn’t leaving, and will now be the sole highest-rated Xbox Game Pass game, and that’s 2000’s Perfect Dark from Rare. However, in a showdown between the two, Grand Theft Auto 5’s rating is more impressive because one, it has it across more reviews, and two, it’s far more popular. Typically, in order to achieve massive mainstream commercial success, a certain quality has to be sacrificed that doesn’t resonate with critics. To this end, GTA 5 is in an elite club of only a few games that have achieved substantial commercial success and substantial critical success.
It is worth noting that while GTA 5 remains available via Xbox Game Pass until April 15, subscribers have an exclusive 20% discount they can trigger when purchasing the game, which they may want to do if they want to play it before GTA 6.
All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the conversation over on the ComicBook Forum.