Microsoft might be preparing new Xbox Game Pass tier with only first-party games

Xbox Game Pass might be getting a new tier that focuses only on first-party Xbox games. Though the leaked list is mostly old titles.

Last year, Microsoft made some big changes to its popular Xbox Game Pass subscription services. Apart from transforming the plans to Essential, Premium, and Ultimate tiers, it also introduced a 50% price hike for the most valuable subscription that offers day-one game releases. While the service has remained stable since then, there may be some internal testing going on for a new type of Game Pass subscription codenamed TRITON.

This was discovered by X user redphx (via Windows Central), who tends to keep an eye on the Microsoft Store and Xbox back ends for unannounced changes. This is also the mind behind the Better xCloud open-source tool that aims to improve the Xbox cloud gaming experience on browsers.

It was earlier in March that redphx had noticed the TRITON codename, but today, another tidbit about the possible new tier surfaced from the same user, revealing that it only includes games from Xbox Game Studios. The currently found games related to TRITON are the following:

• DOOM Eternal
• Dishonored 2
• Fable Anniversary
• Fallout 4
• Fallout 76
• Gears 5
• Halo 5
• Halo Wars 2
• Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
• Ori and the Blind Forest
• State Of Decay 2
• The Elder Scrolls Online

It's unclear if this is just a preliminary list of games for a future expansion or a simple backend test run of something. The leaked games list is also sporting rather old games that released on or prior to 2020. The oldest game in the bunch is Fable Anniversary from 2014, while Doom Eternal landed in 2020.

Outside of Halo 5, all these titles work across Xbox consoles and PC as well. If this is indeed a first-party games-only Game Pass tier, Microsoft could also take some ideas from EA and introduce it as a new option on rival services like Steam.

With Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond exiting and Asha Sharma taking over as Microsoft Gaming CEO recently, it won't be too surprising to hear that changes may be incoming to Xbox Game Pass tiers going forward. There have been rumors of an ad-supported version of Game Pass being considered by Microsoft too, and TRITON could be related to that.

As always, take leaks with a grain of salt until something official materializes out of Microsoft.

Source

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Posted Saturday 28 March 2026 at 12:23 pm AEST (my time).

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