For the first time in two years, the annual Call of Duty release, Modern Warfare 4, will not come to Xbox Game Pass at launch. To help hammer that point home, Activision is rolling out a new ad campaign reminding people they need to buy the game outright to play it at launch.
The ad (see below) informs people they can preorder the game to “lock in” early access to the campaign. Right below that is a line that states, “Not on Xbox Game Pass this year.”
2024’s Black Ops 6 was the first entry in the series to launch directly into Xbox Game Pass, with Black Ops 7 following the same playbook in 2025. However, Microsoft announced earlier this year that new Call of Duty titles would no longer debut in Game Pass, an announcement it made in conjunction with a price cut for the subscription service.
New Call of Duty games, starting with MW4, are expected to come to Game Pass “during the following holiday season,” so anyone wanting to play the latest Call of Duty in the subscription service will have to wait about a year.
Microsoft did not say why it made this major change, but it could have to do with lost sales. It was reported that Black Ops 6 coming to Game Pass in 2024 amounted to Microsoft missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. New Call of Duty games being included with Game Pass no doubt drove sign-ups, too. In any event, Microsoft opted to change course, and now people have to buy new Call of Duty games outright at launch.
Modern Warfare 4 launches on October 23 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It’s also coming to Switch 2 at launch, and that’s notable because the Call of Duty franchise has skipped Nintendo platforms since 2013. A Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer beta is coming before launch.
