Is PC Game Pass worth it? We priced the entire catalogue
Davit Darchiashvili · Oct 12, 2026
Every month the same question comes back: is PC Game Pass worth it, or is it cheaper to buy the games you actually play? Most answers rely on a hunch about how many games "count". We did it the long way. We took every PC Game Pass game we could match to our catalogue, 431 of them, 400 of which are paid games. Then we priced each one the ways a PC player could otherwise buy it, as of 12 October 2026.
The short answer: it depends almost entirely on whether you buy new releases at launch. The numbers below show where the line falls.
What a year of PC Game Pass buys instead
A year of PC Game Pass is twelve monthly fees at the US price Microsoft set when it cut both PC Game Pass and Ultimate in April 2026, per Xbox Wire. The question is how many catalogue games that money buys outright. It depends on how you buy:
| How you would otherwise buy | Games a year to match PC Game Pass | Games a year to match Ultimate |
|---|---|---|
| Full official list price | 6 | 9 |
| Official store price today, sales included | 11 | 18 |
| Cheapest store we track today | 22 | 36 |
| Each game's lowest recorded price | 42 | 69 |
Medians across the PC Game Pass catalogue as matched to our price data on 12 October 2026. List prices come from the official stores for the most popular catalogue games.
Read the first row as the best case for the subscription. If you would otherwise pay full price for popular games, about 6 a year cover the cost. Read the last row as the worst case. A patient buyer who waits for each game's lowest price would need to play more than 42 catalogue games a year before the subscription came out ahead. Nobody does that.
Most people sit between the two. Today, the median catalogue game costs about one month of PC Game Pass at an official store, sales included. At the cheapest store we track, 71% of the catalogue costs less than a single month's fee.
Gears of War: E-Day joined PC Game Pass on its launch day, 6 October 2026. (Official Steam screenshot)
Most of the catalogue is cheap to own
The catalogue is full of older games, and older games are cheap. 92% of the paid games in PC Game Pass have, at some point, sold for less than one month of the subscription, counting the lowest price we have on record from any store, key shops included. That covers most of the service's best-known games: Stardew Valley, Hades, Deep Rock Galactic, Skyrim Special Edition and Hollow Knight: Silksong among them.
That is the strongest argument against the subscription for some players. If what you want from Game Pass is a back catalogue, you can own most of it outright, often for less than a month or two of fees. And owned games do not leave. Catalogue games rotate out every month; our list of games leaving Game Pass in September showed what that looks like.
Hades is a Game Pass staple, and also one of the cheapest games in the catalogue to own outright. (Official Steam screenshot)
Is PC Game Pass worth it for new releases? Usually yes
The calculation flips for new games. 86 games in the catalogue came out in the last twelve months, including Gears of War: E-Day, Football Manager 26, Jurassic World Evolution 3, The Outer Worlds 2, High On Life 2, Subnautica 2 and Minecraft Dungeons II. New games are expensive and rarely cheap in their first year. Buying Gears of War: E-Day outright at an official store today costs about five months of PC Game Pass. Play two or three big launches a year on the service and the subscription has paid for itself, before counting anything else you try.
Two things weaken that case in 2026. The first is Call of Duty. Microsoft said in April that future Call of Duty games will no longer join Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. They arrive around a year later instead. If Call of Duty is the reason you subscribe, that changes the maths. The second is that a launch price does not last. Our record of launch prices shows most new games get cheaper within months. The value of playing on day one is real, but it is a value of timing, not of ownership.
Gears of War: E-Day, the latest day-one PC Game Pass release. Launch trailer via IGN.
The Outer Worlds 2 is one of the recent big releases in the catalogue that would cost a couple of months of fees to buy. (Official Steam screenshot)
A simple way to decide
- Count the new releases you would buy at launch this year. If it is two or more and they are on Game Pass, subscribe for those months.
- If you mostly play older games, buy them. Check the price on the game page first. Most of the catalogue sells for less than a month's fee, and you keep it.
- Subscribe in bursts, not forever. One month to finish a specific game, then cancel. That is how the numbers above work out best for the subscription.
- Pick the tier by platform. Ultimate mostly makes sense if you also play on console or in the cloud. Our guide to Game Pass tiers covers the differences.
Every game page shows whether a game is on PC Game Pass, next to the price it would cost to own. The full catalogue is on our Game Pass page.
Subnautica 2, released in May 2026, is already in the PC Game Pass catalogue. (Official Steam screenshot)
The bottom line
PC Game Pass is worth it if you play new releases at launch. One big game covers several months. It is poor value as a way to play older games: 92% of the catalogue has sold for less than one month's fee, and a game you buy stays in your library. Subscribe when a launch you want arrives, buy the back catalogue when it is cheap, and cancel when nothing new is coming.