Assassin's Creed Subscription Comes To Xbox, Costs More Than Game Pass

After a long wait, Ubisoft+, the french publisher’s Netflix-like gaming subscription, has finally arrived on console by way of the Xbox One and Series X/S. But it comes at a hefty price. Rather than launch a new, cheaper tier, players will have to pay $18 for the existing premium multi-platform subscription.

That means access to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and new Ubisoft games on day one, at least for those willing to pay more than the current $15 monthly price of Game Pass Ultimate. Instead of bundling the two services, as is the case with EA Play, Ubisoft+ will apparently remain separate, raising the question of who exactly it will be for outside of hardcore fans willing to shell out for both.

Ubisoft+ does have some perks that EA Play doesn’t. It includes all new releases day-and-date, whereas EA Play offers free 10-hour trials but doesn’t circulate new blockbusters into the library until many months after they launch. Ubisoft+ also lets you play the library using cloud gaming via Amazon’s Luna service, giving subscribers multiplatform access across console, PC, and mobile.

Still, $18 a month is steep, especially compared to the value you get from Game Pass for less. Microsoft’s subscription service even includes some of Ubisoft’s biggest games like Watch Dogs 2, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Far Cry 5. That’s not nearly as robust as Ubisoft+’s catalog, but between For Honor, Rainbow Six Siege, and Ghost Recon Wildlands, there’s plenty to keep newcomers and casual fans occupied.

The biggest draw of Ubisoft+ by far is getting access to new games for just $18 a month. With prices getting bumped up to $70 for new releases, that’s not nothing, but for it to matter Ubisoft also has to start releasing some new games, something it struggled to do the last couple of years. Multiplayer pirate sim Skull and Bones was due out last fall but keeps getting delayed and doesn’t even have a new release date anymore. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is in the same boat.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage, a smaller stop-gap game between Valhalla and the next open world release, is due out before the end of 2023. Maybe Ubisoft will manage to improve Ubisoft+’s price by then.

Here’s the full list of games available for the service on Xbox: