A three-month Xbox Game Pass trial is being handed out for free at the moment, and the source is one you probably wouldn’t guess: NVIDIA.
Xbox hasn’t had a tidy stretch lately. Studios have been shuffled around, the entire hardware plan has been reconsidered, and every price hike has made the Game Pass subscription more of a flashpoint. Between the layoffs, the scrapped projects, the restructuring, and the running debate over whether the assorted Game Pass tiers justify what Microsoft charges, players who’ve stuck with the brand for years have no shortage of reasons to be nervous about its direction.
Game Pass is still the pitch, even if the price stings
Even so, Game Pass remains the best hand Xbox has to play. It’s a library that keeps rotating through major releases, indie titles, first-party games and Day One launches. The trouble is that the climbing prices and the reshuffled plans have made pulling the trigger on a subscription a tougher ask for many.
That’s precisely why this promotion deserves a glance from anyone who’s been on the sidelines. Players who qualify can grab a free trial for a limited stretch and browse the catalog without handing over the usual subscription fee.
How to claim it, step by step
Getting there takes a detour. Install or launch the NVIDIA App on a PC that supports it, create an NVIDIA account if you don’t already have one, and log in. Locate the reward inside the app and cash it in for a free three-month Discord Nitro membership. Packed into that Nitro membership is three months of Xbox Game Pass Starter.
So this is, strictly speaking, a Discord Nitro promotion dressed up as a Game Pass one.
The catch that’ll disqualify a lot of you
Eligibility is aimed at new or returning Discord Nitro subscribers. Reports indicate that anyone currently paying for Nitro — or anyone who held a membership at any time during the previous 12 months — is shut out. In those cases the offer may not even appear once you sign into the NVIDIA App.
Still worth a look. Checking doesn’t cost anything.
What Starter actually gets you
Starter sits at the bottom of the Game Pass ladder and is priced accordingly, with a curated catalog of roughly 50 games. Titles available include DOOM Eternal, Fallout 4, Ori and the Will of the Wisps and The Elder Scrolls Online. On top of that, you get as much as 10 hours of cloud gaming per month.
What’s missing from the tier is online console multiplayer — it simply isn’t part of the package. Anyone who spends most of their time in paid multiplayer won’t get much mileage out of it.
This is no substitute for Ultimate, and not everybody will be able to get it. Still, if Game Pass has been sitting in your maybe pile and you’d like a look inside before you commit, three months and 50 games at no cost is a sensible way to answer the question.