EA has confirmed that Madden NFL 23 won’t be launching on Xbox Game Pass after all when it arrives later this summer. Just a few days back, a new leak on the Xbox website seemed to indicate that the latest Madden installment would be releasing on day one via Xbox Game Pass. And while this news got a number of fans quite excited, EA has now made clear that Madden 23 won’t be landing on Microsoft’s gaming subscription service — at least not right away.
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In a statement given to Gamespot, a representative from EA made it plainly clear that Madden NFL 23 won’t be coming to Xbox Game Pass. “This was an error in how Madden NFL 23 was displayed on Xbox.com and has since been corrected. Madden NFL 23 will not be available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate,” EA said in its official message on the situation.
Even though this might be disappointing, it’s hard to say that this isn’t surprising. The official Xbox website has accidentally made errors like this in the past with other titles that were said to be coming to Xbox Game Pass. To see that the error occurred once again is a bummer, but there is a precedent for it to happen from time to time.
Again, the caveat with this whole situation is that, on a long enough timeline, Madden NFL 23 should end up arriving on Xbox Game Pass. The reason for this is because EA’s own subscription platform, EA Play, collaborates with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Essentially, every game that is available to download and play on EA Play is also available via Game Pass Ultimate. So while Madden 23 won’t be on EA Play right when it launches, the game will come there at some point. For instance, Madden NFL 22 joined both EA Play and Game Pass Ultimate in the early months of 2022. As such, it seems likely that Madden 23 could land on both of these services early next year.
In a general sense, Madden NFL 23 is set to release on August 19 and will be coming to PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC. For more on the game, you can check out our hands-on preview right here.
