In the old days, we used to have to walk or drive to the local Blockbuster to rent a game. When Blockbusters everywhere started losing the war to streaming giant Netflix, we had Redbox rental vending machines in our grocery stores. Now, we have game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and even GeForce Now's Free tier. Those monthly subscription services have been game-changing for what games we play and how we pay for them.
But sometimes you want to actually own a game. The trouble is how do you easily try out a game before you buy it? Sure, Steam will let you refund a game within 14 days of purchase, as long as you've played less than 2 hours. But it can be tricky to evaluate a game in 2 hours. For some titles this is more than enough time, but with lengthy open-world RPGs 2 hours is often not enough time to even get through the tutorial.
Enter: Nvidia GeForce Now Day Pass
GeForce Now Day Pass: what we know
GeForce Now's day passes are available starting today. They're a 24-hour pass gives gamers access to Nvidia's RTX-powered cloud gaming rigs and GeForce Now's game library with over 1,800 titles.
There are two tiers of GeForce Now Day Pass, Ultimate and Priority. They come with the benefits of the Ultimate and Priority monthly subscriptions, but for a 24-hour window only. So the Priority Day Pass offers an RTX gaming rig, priority access to premium servers, 1080p resolution at 60FPS speeds, and gaming sessions of up to 6 hours. The Ultimate Day Pass offers access to an RTX 4080 gaming rig, access to the exclusive 4080 servers, up to 4K resolution at up to 120FPS speeds, and gaming sessions of up to 8 hours. The Ultimate tier is also getting Cloud G-Sync and Nvidia Reflex support for an even lower-latency gaming experience.
The Ultimate Day Pass is available for $7.99 and the Priority Day Pass is available for $3.99.
GeForce Now Day Pass: why you'd want it
Technically, Nvidia's entire GeForce Now library is available for free at any time. But that tier is limited to cloud gaming on a basic rig, limited to 1 hour gaming sessions, and is ad supported. So its not exactly a fun gaming experience.
Ultimate and Priority Day Pass give you access to high-end gaming rigs and add-free game sessions. So you can enjoy a 6 to 8-hour long session with a new game and decide if you actually want to own it.
For games you may only want to play once, the Day Pass is an even better choice. In fact, for some indie games 6-8 hours is the entire length of the game. Titles like "Firewatch" or "Superhot" are easy to beat in 6 hours or less, and they're available in the GeForce library.
Of course, if you don't have access to a high-end gaming rig the monthly subscription options for GeForce Now are a pretty easy sell to begin with. But for those with access to quality gaming rigs, GeForce Now Day Pass is just the newest way to rent a game. And that's actually kind of cool.
