The company mentions that this change is due to an increase in the number of Microsoft Rewards points needed to be eligible for an Xbox Game Pass subscription, which brings us to

Given the game went number one on Steam last week, it sounds like Avowed has sold rather well then, despite being included in Xbox Game Pass on day one. Game Pass is only applicable for the Xbox and Microsoft Store PC versions though - Steam users would have to purchase the game, and purchase it they seem to have done.

If you use Microsoft Rewards to pay for Xbox Game Pass, the bad news is it's soon going to cost you a lot more of your points.

So, sure, GamePass is reasonably successful for what it is — but it definitely hasn’t changed the world like Netflix did to Hollywood. People are still mostly buying new games, sometimes even still on a disc from Best Buy or Walmart. Streaming a game to your phone or TV over the cloud remains pretty niche.

Taking a look at the "redeem" section of Microsoft Rewards here in the UK, the current method of redeeming a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for 12k points and PC Game Pass for 7.75k points is still available as part of the "auto redeem" feature, but there are two new versions that have just appeared for 17k and 10.5k points respectively.

The Xbox Game Pass content catalog receives two more February 2025 titles, only one of which is available on the Standard tier.