Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Adds One of 2023's Best-Selling Games (2024)

EA Sports FC 24 is now available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. This is the 11th new title to reach Microsoft's subscription service in June 2024 and the 81st Xbox Game Pass Ultimate addition since the turn of the year.

After developing officially licensed FIFA games for three decades, EA decided to end its partnership with the top governing body of association football in 2022. Following the release of FIFA 23, the company opted to leverage its football sim expertise to make a new series, unencumbered by FIFA's rising licensing demands. EA Sports FC 24 is the first entry in that new franchise, originally released in late September 2023.

Nine months later, the football sim made its way to Xbox Game Pass, which added it on June 25. As is the case with all EA releases on the service, EA Sports FC 24 requires the EA Play add-on, which is only available to PC Game Pass and Ultimate-tier members. In terms of sheer popularity, the football sim is one of this year's biggest additions to the subscription service; although EA Sports FC 24 physical sales were down compared to FIFA 23, its overall commercial momentum was still strong enough to make it one of the best-selling games of 2023.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate June 2024 Release Calendar

Specifically, a recent Statista study indicated that EA Sports FC 24 was the tenth best-selling game in the U.S. last year, behind Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and immediately ahead of Starfield. The game launched to somewhat mixed reviews, as underlined by its OpenCritic recommendation rate of 59%. User impressions were similarly polarizing, largely due to the perceived lack of improvements compared to FIFA 23 and the game's aggressive monetization. The fandom felt strongly enough about those issues that EA Sports FC 24 even ended up being review-bombed shortly following its launch.

Be that as it may, gamers interested in a realistic football sim currently don't have many fully licensed alternatives to choose from. The only big-budget rival that's presently on offer is Konami's eFootball 2024, but that free-to-play game also received mixed reviews at launch from both critics and fans alike. Alternatively, FIFA 23 is still available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members.

Three more titles will be added to the service before the end of the month, starting with the June 26 arrival of the SteamWorld Dig series. Robin Hood – Sherwood Builders is then set to debut a day later, shortly before Xbox Game Pass loses five games on June 30.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the highest tier of Microsoft's flagship game subscription service that offers over 100 game titles that you can play with a single purchase, making it one of the most outstanding value propositions of the Xbox ecosystem to date.

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