For almost six years now, Xbox Game Pass has provided one of the greatest services in all of gaming, allowing players across both console and PC to dive head-first into a catalog of over 100 games, all for one reasonable monthly price. As the years have gone on, Xbox Game Pass has only gotten better, with more first-party Xbox exclusives, third-party AAA hits, and Indie gems coming to the service. But Xbox Game Pass isn't without its competition anymore.
A year ago, Sony released its own long-rumored competitor to Xbox Game Pass. Called PlayStation Plus Extra, this service functions almost identically to Xbox Game Pass. Of course, coming years after Game Pass, PS Plus Extra isn't quite as established, and its library of games is lacking in some pretty key areas. But every month PlayStation Plus Extra gets a new set of games, and this month, the line-up is a particularly interesting one, knocking the wind out of Xbox Game Pass' sails in one big way.
Bethesda Putting Its Games on PS Plus Weakens Xbox Game Pass a Little
PlayStation Plus Extra has just announced its line-up for April 2023, and it includes some pretty interesting picks. All available on Tuesday, April 18, PS Plus Extra will receive Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Riders Republic, Slay the Spire, and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. But on top of all those great offerings, PlayStation Plus Extra will also receive a plethora of Bethesda titles this month, covering some of the publisher's most well-known franchises.
For PlayStation Plus Extra subscribers, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein 2, The Evil Within, and Wolfenstein: The Old Blood will be available this month. And for those with PlayStation Plus Premium, remastered versions of Doom, Doom 2, Doom 64, Doom 3, and Dishonored: Definitive Edition will also be available. With games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 already on PlayStation Plus, this new onslaught of titles means that almost every Bethesda-owned game is currently on the service right now, which weakens Xbox Game Pass a little.
When Xbox first acquired Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax Media back in 2021, both companies made a big deal about Bethesda's games finally coming to Xbox Game Pass. For the last few years, Game Pass has been home to just about every Bethesda franchise, with PC Game Pass even getting the original Fallout games. While most of Bethesda's Game Pass offerings could found relatively cheaply in the wild, it was a big draw for the service to have them all in one place, and all for just one fee. But that's no longer the case anymore.
With all of these Bethesda games now coming to PlayStation Plus, it takes away a sizable draw for Xbox Game Pass. Not only does it take away one of Game Pass' selling points, but it also weakens the Xbox brand a little. While not every game should be exclusive to just one platform, Bethesda is a big deal in the gaming industry, and it would make sense for Xbox to try and benefit from that where it can.
It seemed as though Bethesda's place on Game Pass was the start of Xbox trying to do exactly that, but with this recent PS Plus announcement, Xbox's strategy is a little less clear to understand. One potential theory is that Microsoft is still trying to prove that it can play well with the rest of the industry in order to get its Activision-Blizzard acquisition passed, and in an attempt to do so, it's agreed to let PS Plus borrow some Bethesda games.