Good news! Microsoft has announced that they have begun rolling out a new testing phase for select Xbox Insider users, this time focusing on playing free-to-play games without requiring a Gold membership!
The news comes from an official tweet posted by the Xbox Insider account:
Xbox Insiders in Alpha Skip Ahead & Alpha today we are flighting some new features. Multiplayer in Free-to-play games, Looking 4 Groups and Party Chat on Xbox no longer requires an Xbox Live Gold membership as we flight and test these service changes ahead of general availability
— Xbox Insider (@xboxinsider) March 24, 2021
While we’ve known about the company’s plans to remove the Gold Membership requirement from free-to-play titles (f2p), one of the bigger surprises is that they will also be making party chat and looking for a group free with the policy change. It’s unclear if the latter features are system wide or strictly for free-to-play games, but regardless that certainly bodes great for Xbox gamers who mostly play f2p games.
As for when we might expect to see these changes for everyone else? Well, it should be sometimes in the next few months when the new dashboard update rolls out. Should be hearing more on that real soon, so stay tuned!