Xbox is reportedly taking a ‘pick your own plan’ approach to Game Pass

After reducing its price by removing Call of Duty from the offer, it seems Microsoft now wants to reform Game Pass altogether through offering a “pick your own plan” deal to gamers. According to rumors, Game Pass could soon let you choose what you want to have included in your plan, allowing for flexible and custom costs.

This is according to Jez Corden, who, citing Microsoft sources, claims that Game Pass is going to be reformed down the line after its price was slashed following the removal of CoD from the day one program. “Microsoft sources tell me that the longer-term goal for Xbox Game Pass is to make it more flexible,” he claims, adding that “a sort of ‘pick your own plan’ formula for Xbox Game Pass is on the cards, essentially, where users can effectively decide what packages of content they want to see as part of their plan.”

Through this, Game Pass users would essentially drop and pick up select features from their plan, allowing them to tailor it to their own needs and wants instead of being “forced” to pay for that stuff they don’t usually use. As Corden says, one could remove cloud gaming from the offer to lower the price while keeping the rest, or exchange it for some day one games, or tack on other bonus subscriptions on top like Netflix, without changing the cost too much. It’d be a flexible way of approaching the subscription model, which many major corporations seem very interested in these days.

Under chief executive Asha Sharma, Xbox seems to be going through a much-needed overhaul. While we do not know where that’ll end up, these first moves by this new leader seem rather promising. Xbox Game Pass price hikes were a major controversy whenever they happened, and at nearly $30 per month, it really didn’t seem like a worthwhile investment. Now, Game Pass is at $22.99 per month for the Ultimate tier, and having more cost-effective options will certainly do wonders for the subscription.

In fact, Sharma confirmed Xbox is working to increase the flexibility of Game Pass in a post about a new Discord partnership, but she did not share much else about these purported changes, nor what future plans might entail.

Either way, we’ll have to wait and see. Game Pass is an excellent option on paper, but how it’s been executed hasn’t always produced the best results. More choice and buyer freedom are always welcome, and I hope that we’ll see some of the stuff above implemented on some level down the line.

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Vampire Crawlers offers different Gems for you to obtain on your run, and you can use them to modify the cards in your deck. They’re obtained randomly, but some of them will dramatically change how your drafted deck works.

You can use this guide to keep track of how every Gem works before you choose one on your run.

All Gem effects in Vampire Crawlers

The table below has a list of every Gem along with its in-game effects.

Name	Effect
Amount	Adds the number of projectiles.
Area	Adds the area effect of a card.
Armor	Adds Armor.
Armor Strike	Deal Armor as damage when played.
Bombard	Adds an explosive bomb.
Coin Card	Creates Coin Shards.
Copy	The card is copied when used.
Countdown	Mana cost reduces when not used.
Crawler Caller	Summon all Crawlers to Hand.
Decimate	Deals 10% of enemy’s health as damage.
Destroy	The card gets destroyed, but you get coins in return.
Double Damage	Hits twice as hard.
Drain	Heals when the card kills an enemy.
Draw	Draws an extra card.
Duration	Increases Duration stat.
Easy Combo	The card always benefits from combo.
Echo	Replays the previous card’s effect.
Evolution	Evolves the card into a more powerful weapon.
Greed	Increases Greed stat.
Growth	Increases Growth stat.
Increase Mana Cost +1	Mana cost is increased by 1, so it can be used in a higher Combo.
Increase Mana Cost +2	Mana cost is increased by 2, so it can be used in a higher Combo.
Kill Count	Deal current kills total as damage to a random enemy.
Leader	Attacks deal extra damage while the card is in your Hand.
Magic Hat	Beckons a dove from above.
Magnetic	Draws another of the same card, if you have one in your deck.
Mana Rebate	If the card would reduce Mana to 0, receive double Mana instead.
Midas	Playing cards earn coins while this is in your hand.
Might	Increases Might stat.
Mug	Earns coins when the card kills an enemy.
Nduja	Deals spicy damage.
Purple Trigger	Adds Purple color trigger.
Quick Draw	The card is always drawn first at the start of an encounter.
Rainbow	Adds all color triggers.
Recycle	Card skips the Discard pile.
Reduce Mana Cost -1	Mana cost is reduced by 1.
Reduce Mana Cost -2	Mana cost is reduced by 2.
Refund	Refunds Mana to play.
Restore HEalth	Recovers health after an encounter.
Retain	When the card is drawn, it stays in Hand until used.
Return	Returns to hand after playing.
Reverse Combo	Allows the next card to continue the combo while breaking the base rule of increasing mana ascendancy.
Triple Damage	Does three times the base damage.
Wild	Makes the card Wild.
Yellow Trigger	Adds a Yellow Color trigger.
Yin Yang	If you’re on even mana, you’ll gain 1 mana. If you’re on odd mana, you’ll draw 1 card.

When drafting in a Gem, you should always pay attention to the character that you’re using in your deck. Vampire Crawlers offer 21 characters to unlock and equip, and they have their unique strengths. Also, pay attention to the weapon combinations and evolutions since the effectiveness of a specific Gem will depend on your existing deck components.

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