After it leaked just three weeks ago, today, Discord and Xbox confirmed that a new 'starter' tier of Xbox Game Pass would be included with Discord Nitro. The news was first confirmed by Discord in a blog post and later followed up by Xbox with its own blog post. This new 'Starter Edition' of Game Pass will include over 50 games for players to jump into and 10 hours of cloud gaming, but it does not include online multiplayer for console players.
Nitro subscribers at the $9.99 tier are the ones who will get access to this new Starter Edition of Xbox Game Pass, which is getting added to a Nitro subscription without a price increase. It's unclear if this new Starter Edition tier will only be available through this collaboration with Discord or if Xbox will start offering it as one of the new, "lower-priced tiers" of Game Pass we know that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has been exploring, but what is clear is that this new edition introduces a few 'firsts' for Xbox Game Pass.
Like how it is the first official tier to include a time limit on cloud gaming. We've seen reports of an ad-supported cloud gaming experience that would be free with time limits for users, but that hasn't been officially rolled out. This is also the first tier to not include online multiplayer for console users, as confirmed in the Starter Edition's terms and conditions.
While you don't need a Game Pass subscription to play free-to-play games online, if you were someone who, say, bought ARC Raiders on your Xbox console and wanted to try and cut down on your subscription spending by keeping Discord Nitro while dropping Xbox Game Pass, you wouldn't be able to unless you swapped to only playing your Xbox games through the Xbox PC app, since PC players do not lose access to online multiplayer on the Starter Edition version of Game Pass.
Game Pass subscribers will also start to get benefits for Discord as well, with eligible Game Pass users set to receive 250 Discord Orbs per month, 1.2x extra Orbs when completing Discord Quests, and Discord Shop discounts. An exact date on when those benefits will go live, and the details around what qualifies you as an 'eligible' subscriber aren't yet clear, but will be coming "soon" according to the Xbox Wire blog post.
For more on what the Starter Edition tier includes, you can check out the leaked list of games available in the new tier.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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