So I saw a week or two ago that Destiny 2 is leaving Xbox GamePass on December 8, but life's been nuts enough that it wasn't until today that I could look into what that meant for me.

When I first read about it, it was just Beyond Light. Today, they announced that all Destiny 2 Expansions on GamePass are going away - Forsaken, Shadowkeep, and BL.

The first two aren't a huge problem (for me); I bought them individually when they came out.

The last one, though - Beyond Light - well, that's a problem. BL launched about the same time I migrated from Xbox Live Gold to GamePass Ultimate (since the $1-to-upgrade deal was pretty much unbeatable)... so I thought, well, instead of buying this game on two platforms, I can save some money and buy it on PlayStation, and get it for free on Xbox (with GamePass), and have the best of both worlds.

Until now.

I suppose I could live without the campaign... but ALL of the stuff that came with Beyond Light is going away if you are using the GP version. That includes Vault of Glass... and it includes the Stasis subclasses.

So it looks like I've got an unexpected $40 charge coming up in the next 3 weeks. (Yeah, they're offering it at a 20% discount at the moment, I guess as a 'we're sorry to fuck you with almost no warning'?)

Dammit.

But yeah, it's weird when I occasionally fire up the PC version and suddenly I can't equip my stasis subclass.

Not sure if it also applies to expansion exotics, since I don't have any yet ._.

(Yeah, they're offering it at a 20% discount at the moment, I guess as a 'we're sorry to fuck you with almost no warning'?)

All Game Pass games are available at a 20% discount during their run in Game Pass, FYI.

But yeah, it's weird when I occasionally fire up the PC version and suddenly I can't equip my stasis subclass.

Yeah, my bad. It's Deep Stone Crypt you lose.

I warned everyone.

I warned everyone.

You warned everyone of what? This is exactly the same as a movie leaving Netflix.

Does it sort of suck for Claude? I guess. But he also got access to it for a full year. Forgive me for this, but if he got Game Pass because it let him access Beyond Light, I think he either didn’t do enough research into what he was doing, or he had a brain fart, because just buying Beyond Light would have been cheaper than a year of Game Pass anyway (barring the $1 upgrade to convert the rest of your Live into Game Pass—and if that’s the case this is a non-issue, because he got a year of Beyond Light for a fucking dollar).

This isn’t the gotcha against Game Pass you think it is.

- No text -

And I don't play nearly as many games as I use to. Still an amazing deal. Stuff like this sucks. But it's a sucky part of an amazing thing.

I don’t even really think it sucks, to be honest. Not continuing to pay Bungie for Destiny means they can get something else I might want to try instead.

I don’t even really think it sucks, to be honest. Not continuing to pay Bungie for Destiny means they can get something else I might want to try instead.

I was more agreeing with you :D

Ultimately I think GamePass is more helpful for those companies that can't afford development costs and marketing and thus less helpful for the bigger companies that can. I think it's just not worth it for Bungie anymore. Or maybe they had something signed and it was the end of the contract and it wasn't worth it to stay on GamePass. Maybe we will never know.

I don’t even really think it sucks, to be honest. Not continuing to pay Bungie for Destiny means they can get something else I might want to try instead.

I was more agreeing with you :D

Oh, I know. I just want to push back on even saying that games leaving Game Pass sucks, as a rule. It sort of sucks for Claude in that he has to spend $40 he wasn’t expecting, that’s fair. But I don’t think it sucks for that service. I’d much rather have a revolving set of new things to try out and play rather than expecting it to be a stable library of things. If there’s something there that I like well enough, I buy it before it leaves the service.

I don’t even really think it sucks, to be honest. Not continuing to pay Bungie for Destiny means they can get something else I might want to try instead.

I was more agreeing with you :D

Oh, I know. I just want to push back on even saying that games leaving Game Pass sucks, as a rule. It sort of sucks for Claude in that he has to spend $40 he wasn’t expecting, that’s fair. But I don’t think it sucks for that service. I’d much rather have a revolving set of new things to try out and play rather than expecting it to be a stable library of things. If there’s something there that I like well enough, I buy it before it leaves the service.

Yeah, at the very least you can treat it as a trial period service and if you like the game, like you said, you can buy it. And you get all inhouse games forever. It's still worth it for the price even as a casual gamer like me.

So... December 8 is 3 weeks from yesterday, and normally I'd just rip the bandaid off and pay the upgrade cost (well, purchase price, I guess) so that I didn't have to worry about it.

But in today's TWAB was this line:

Players who wish to continue playing Destiny 2 on Xbox should look for Destiny 2 expansion discounts that will be available soon.

So... are they talking about the 20% discount available right now... or are they talking about something else?

I suppose I'm gonna wait and see, because the only thing more annoying than dropping $40 when I wasn't expecting it is dropping $40 and then finding out a few days (or maybe a couple of weeks, who the hell knows what 'soon' means) later that I only needed to drop $30. Or $25. Or whatever.

Biggest fear now? I forget entirely, December 8 comes and goes, I lose access to a bunch of shit, and the discounts vanish, leaving me with a $50 price to pay.

The local bar at the corner has a sign above its door that currently reads

Be the reason that someone smiles today. Or drinks. Whatever.

Seems... appropriate at the moment. Thanks, Microsoft!

I guess I'm a super casual gamer at this point. Gamepass isn't worth it to me. Too many non-game interests/commitments vying for my attention. I don't have time to play the small handful of games I want to play, Destiny included. I already own a stack of games I want to play and don't have time for. Why should I pay to have access to a few more? And if I am a big fan of something, I like to own it (to the extent you can these days).

I'm probably not typical of anyone here. I'm sure that Gamepass is amazing to most--it's just not the best choice for me.