When we started covering the Xbox Game Pass Quests (and therefore, Microsoft Rewards) program back in 2020 here at Pure Xbox, there were a lot of game-specific tasks that players needed to complete for points. Some of these were lengthy and difficult, and we created a big Game Pass Quests guide as a result - which ended up proving really popular.

As time passed, we became aware of a YouTube channel known as Rewards Hunter which would provide fantastic video guides for every Xbox Game Pass Quest on a weekly basis, often within just a couple of hours of them going live. It was so good that we asked if we could include their videos in our Pure Xbox guide, which they graciously accepted.

However, things have changed with Microsoft Rewards a lot over the past couple of years, and a recent overhaul to the Xbox Game Pass Quests system has led to the owner of the Rewards Hunter channel deciding to shut it down.

It's been a long time now since players had to complete any kind of game-specific tasks to earn Microsoft Rewards points, but for the duration of 2024, it still required achievements - which the channel continued to help players with.

That's no longer the case with the new system, which removes the need to earn achievements (a change that's admittedly gone down well overall) in favour of simply playing games consistently on a daily and/or weekly basis.

As you can see, the owner of the Rewards Hunter channel is handling it well, but nevertheless has made a video outlining their thoughts about how the Xbox Game Pass Quests system has suffered a "downfall" over the years.

And yeah... this is a difficult one. We're genuinely fans of the new Xbox Game Pass Quests format that's been implemented for 2025, and speaking personally, I'm much more engaged with it already than I was in 2024. That said, the glory days of a few years ago were surely the best - the Quests were more inventive and the points were plentiful!

What really matters here is the effort that Rewards Hunter has put in for fans over the past few years, and we'd like to take this opportunity to highlight their contributions. Hopefully they'll find a reason to come out of retirement eventually!

Here are a couple of their most popular Xbox Game Pass Quests videos from the past:

What do you think about Xbox Game Pass Quests now compared to how they used to be? Tell us below.