Starting 2023, Xbox Game Pass users can access early demos for brand new upcoming games as part of their subscription.
Xbox Game Pass continues to be one of the core focuses of Microsoft’s position in the video game industry, already becoming one of the biggest video game subscription services less than five years since its launch. The subscription service has undeniably changed the industry, introducing a subscription in which fans can experience major new releases such as Halo Infinite and The Outer Worlds the day of their release. Now, Microsoft has announced another major addition to Game Pass that could change how demos for upcoming games are released. Through an initiative called Project Moorcroft, Xbox Game Pass will receive demos for upcoming games before their release beginning in 2023.
The announcement of Project Moorcroft comes alongside news that Xbox Cloud Gaming will be making its debut on select Samsung TVs starting June 30th and that Xbox Game Pass subscribers will soon be able to play games they own through Xbox Cloud Gaming. These reveals come just ahead of the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022, which is scheduled to air in just a few days on June 12th, and will reveal updates and announcements on upcoming games headed to PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Project Moorcroft is slated to be a program that allows developers to release curated demos of upcoming games that are currently in development to Xbox Game Pass subscribers in order to gather feedback and allow players to try their games early. Speaking in a video shared by The Verge’s senior editor Tom Warren, Xbox Vice President Sarah Bond compares the demos to ones previously released to the public and media at events such as E3 and PAX, claiming that this new program replaces the show floor of these events with an Xbox Game Pass subscription.
Furthermore, Bond reveals in this video that games that participate in Project Moorcroft will receive financial backing from Microsoft for their projects, should they release demos through Xbox Game Pass. This could come with the likelihood of the games eventually coming to Xbox Game Pass at launch. This is an important part of the process as many developers have criticized events such as E3 for taking time and resources away from full game development for production of curated demos made to play on the show floor, however Microsoft has implied that it will recoup the cost of this.
While it’s easy to see this as a response to the recent reveal that PlayStation Plus Premium will include timed game trials for previously released titles, Xbox has been building to this since 2020, when it released over 60 demos for upcoming indie games on the Microsoft Store. It continued this in 2021, and now it appears it is becoming a regular part of Xbox Game Pass moving forward, which only bolsters the amount of content fans will have as part of their subscription.
Project Moorcroft is slated to launch as part of Xbox Game Pass in 2023.