•Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches on October 23 and will not be available on Xbox Game Pass at launch. Activision is reaffirming this in a new blog post published ahead of the game’s campaign early access on October 16.
The publisher has been warning players for months that MW4 would not join the service, making the latest announcement just another example of its stance. Upon release, the only way to obtain the game is by purchasing it outright, starting at $70 for the base edition and reaching up to $100 for the Vault edition.
Activision said MW4 will be available on Xbox Game Pass at some point at the end of next year, meaning it will be “windowed” as a standalone purchase for about one year.
Why are new Call of Duty games no longer included with Game Pass?
Microsoft has never explicitly explained why it made this major change, but reports suggest it could relate to lost sales. It was reported that Black Ops 6 joining Game Pass in 2024 cost Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. That figure has been debated and does not tell the whole story, though there was surely a financial impact Microsoft is responding to.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is undertaking a “reset” of the Xbox business, with removing new Call of Duty games from Game Pass being part of that effort. She is also attempting to revive Xbox console exclusives, including what has been described as a nuclear option.
What other Call of Duty games are on Game Pass?
Although Game Pass Ultimate subscribers cannot play MW4 until next year, the catalog currently includes several older entries in the series. These include Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Black Ops 6, Modern Warfare 3, WW2, Vanguard, Black Ops Cold War, Modern Warfare (2019), and Modern Warfare II (2022).
1 comment