Activision Blizzard, which is now owned by Microsoft, is gearing up to announce the next Call of Duty game soon and release it later this year. There’s been one major point of contention ahead of this year’s Call of Duty: Will it be on Xbox Game Pass at launch? A new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that is the case.
Historically, Microsoft has added all its first-party games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda to Game Pass the day they launched. That applies to big AAA releases like Starfield, as well as more experimental titles like 2022’s Pentiment and Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, which releases next week. Microsoft’s public messaging thus far has teased that 2024’s new Call of Duty game, expected to be a continuation of the Black Ops subseries, will come to the Xbox Game Pass. That said, Microsoft has not officially confirmed it, so there have been conflicting reports on this actually being the case.
In the wake of Bethesda’s closures of Arkane Austin, Mighty Dog Games, and Tango Gameworks, a report from The Verge claimed that Microsoft has “had internal debates about whether to put new releases of Call of Duty into Game Pass” because some people at the company think that “revenue that Call of Duty typically generates for Activision Blizzard will be undermined by Game Pass.” A new The Wall Street Journal report suggests those internal debates have been settled, and claims that Microsoft plans on “releasing the coming installment of Call of Duty to its subscription service instead of the longtime, lucrative approach of only selling it à la carte.”
Thankfully, we won’t have to wait too long for an answer. Microsoft has teased that an unannounced game will be getting a dedicated Direct following its Xbox Games Showcase next month, and all signs point to that game being the next Call of Duty title, with The Wall Street Journal also claiming that its Xbox Game Pass announcement will come during that show.
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