SUMMARY
- GTA 5 has been a massive addition to Xbox Game Pass whenever it has been free, boosting its playerbase further.
- GTA 5 has now been removed from the Game Pass for unknown reasons, however, there are some possible explanations.
GTA 5, one of Rockstar Games’ most popular and profitable titles to date, has officially been taken down from the Xbox Game Pass service. The game was free-to-play for Xbox Game Pass holders, however, that won’t be the case anymore.
After several Game Pass owners received a notification from Xbox about the game being taken down, the game exited on January 5, 2023. Fans received the notification just when Rockstar Games had just released the Chop Shop update.
Interestingly, GTA 5 is not the only game to move away from the service. Other games including Persona 4 Golden, Persona 3 Portable, Moto GP 22, and Garden Story will be removed from the service on January 15, 2023.
Why was GTA 5 removed from Game Pass?
Although neither Rockstar Games nor Microsoft has stated the reason why the game is exiting the game service, there could be multiple reasons for the removal. One reason could be content rotation. Like most video and movie content services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, Xbox Game Pass also rotates the games from time to time.
Additionally, the decision is not taken entirely by Microsoft, since Rockstar Games owns GTA V, they have the right to decide how long they wish to offer their game on the Game Pass service.
Another reason could be cost. Game Pass owners can play the listed game for free. Taking it off the service means players have to pay to play the game, thus offering a monetization option for Rockstar. Also, GTA 5 is generally expensive to license, thus Microsoft may have removed the game from its service to keep costs down.
The third possible reason is the game being offered for free on the competitive service, PlayStation Plus. PlayStation added GTA 5 to its subscription service on December 19, 2023. Thus it might be Rockstar’s internal call to offer the game for free at only one source at a time.
Besides in the past Rockstar has done a similar thing to shift attention to a new release from them. The upcoming release of GTA 6 in 2025 could also be a reason since Rockstar wants to build up for their record-breaking title.
Will GTA return to Game Pass?
Notably, it is not the first time GTA 5 has been removed from Microsoft’s free-to-play catalog. It has been taken down quite a few times. A majority of the time it was to either promote the title or draw attention to a new release. The game was first made available for free to Game Pass subscribers when Rockstar released it for the current-gen consoles.
Later, when the studio was about to release the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, they took down the title from Game Pass. Most recently, GTA 5 arrived on Game Pass for Xbox Series X/S in July 2023. This means it stayed on the free service for only about six months.
Looking at the trend and the reasons, it won’t be particularly surprising to see GTA 5 make a comeback on Game Pass. Offering the game for free on Xbox Game Pass is an easy way of boosting the game’s player base by making it available for a host of new users who don’t own it.