Call of Duty on Xbox Game Pass? It’s official, you’ll have to wait until 2024! | Xbox One
It’s a strange connection that Activision Blizzard made on the evening of October 9th. Contrary to all expectations, the publisher has officially announced the date on which the first games will arrive in the Xbox Game Pass catalog if the buyback process is indeed effective.
The first Activision games on Xbox Game Pass in 2024
While the Activision Blizzard King acquisition has not yet gone into effect, and the CMA’s response is still awaited, Activision has decided to reach out before any official decision.
The publisher surprises everyone and says that once the agreement is in place, the first games should arrive on Xbox Game Pass next year.
It’s great to see the anticipation surrounding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. As we continue to work to obtain regulatory approval for the deal with Microsoft, we have received questions about whether our upcoming and recently launched games will be available through Game Pass.
Although we have no plans to bring Modern Warfare III or Diablo IV to Game Pass this year, once the deal closes, we plan to start working with Xbox to bring our titles to more players around the world. We plan to start adding games to Game Pass sometime next year.
What are the first Activision Blizzard games on Game Pass?
It is difficult to be clearer than this communication, and therefore no game from the publisher’s catalog will be available on Game Pass this year. But before all this happens, we would however like to remind you that Microsoft will have to announce the actual acquisition of the entity and that will not be blocked by any regulatory body. Officially, the CMA’s decision is still awaited at the time of writing.
What will happen next? We still don’t know why, but if the acquisition is indeed announced in the coming days, the timing will be very different from Bethesda’s. In fact, the actual acquisition of Bethesda by Microsoft was announced on March 9, 2021, and just 3 days later, on March 12, the first Bethesda games arrived on Game Pass.
We don’t know yet why Activision couldn’t do the same, but the fact remains that we’ll have to wait a few months before we can imagine Call of Duty arriving on Game Pass.
In its message, Activision talks about Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and Diable IV, but nothing indicates that they will be part of the first games. We only know that it will not be available in service in 2023.
Microsoft would have a great interest in not releasing all the games at once, accumulating Activision Blizzard’s rich catalog here and there over the months. With Crash Bandicoot, Diablo, Prototype, Skylanders, and even Warcraft and soon Call of Duty, Game Pass will be in the spotlight more than ever.
As usual, you can find a list of all upcoming Xbox Game Pass games in our dedicated folder.
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