No, Ubisoft Plus isn't included with Game Pass – so is it worth the outlay?

So, it's finally here. After teasing Ubisoft Plus on Xbox for a while, the French publisher has finally pushed out the service on for Microsoft consoles. But its arrival isn't exactly what a lot of people were, misguidedly, expecting.

Ubisoft first announced the Xbox version of Ubisoft Plus back in January 2022 and, for a while, many people assumed the service would be available bundled in with an active Xbox Game Pass subscription. But that's not the case.

Ubisoft+ Multi Access grants the ability to play across multiple platforms with a single subscription – including PC through Ubisoft Connect, Amazon Luna, and now Xbox. So, it sort-makes sense that it won't be tied directly into the Microsoft ecosystem: that would freeze out the ability to play elsewhere.

But players are finding the asking price quite hard to swallow. A Ubisoft Plus Multi Access plan costs £14.99 / $17.99 / €17.99 per month, and offers fewer games than Game Pass Ultimate (£10.99 per month) or even the vanilla Game Pass (£7.99 a month).

Sure, there are some big modern games on the Ubisoft service like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6, The Division 2, Riders Republic, For Honor, Rainbow Six Siege, The Crew 2, Steep, Watch Dogs: Legion, and more – but there's no banner game, at the moment. There's no big, marquee title that's going to act as a lightning rod and draw people in.

Maybe when Assassin's Creed Mirage launches later this year (or perhaps if we ever see what happened to Beyond Good and Evil 2), there might be a more sensible way in to the appeal of Ubisoft Plus – but for now, adding this extra cost on top of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate monthly spend is a bit rich for my blood. Especially when Game Pass is offering up such good value, at the moment.

Add to this the fact that a bunch of Ubisoft games are currently on standard Xbox Game Pass (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Origins, Rainbow Six Siege, Far Cry 5, For Honor, and Watch Dogs 2), and the price becomes even more difficult to swallow. It’s worth noting that Ubisoft Plus does offer all DLC for the included games, which Game Pass doesn’t, which means you’re getting the complete editions, but is that enough to hand over the extra cash?

So, why isn't this service tied into Game Pass (similarly to how EA Play is a part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate?) Ubisoft+ director Philippe Tremblay shed some light on the subject in an interview with VG247 sibling site, GI.biz.

"We haven't necessarily seen that this market has reached the maximum opportunity here," Tremblay explains. "It's still fairly new across the board that we have subscription offers, even from Xbox or other partners out there."

So, basically, what Tremblay is saying is that the game subscription market isn't at capacity yet, and Ubisoft is keen to get in on the action where there's still space. Which seems just a little bit cynical, if you ask me. Tremblay notes that Ubi wants to "reach a new population of gamers" with this subscription offer, but I'm dubious – the price for entry is steep (even more so than Game Pass) and I can't see this being a really popular move until the engines at Ubi get churning again and the publisher lifts itself out of the slump it's been in for the past few years.

Maybe when the service launches on PlayStation proper (right now, you only have the Ubisoft+ Classics range over on the other side of the console fence), the deal will seem a bit sweeter. For now, it's a hard sell – and one that

To sign up for Ubisoft Plus and check out the growing list of titles, check the link.