Xbox
Neither Call of Duty nor any surprise from Activision Blizzard: Game Pass will have to wait
The head of the Xbox division said that the titles will start arriving in 2024, although he did not share specific dates.
There will be no new Activision Blizzard games on Xbox Game Pass in 2023. This has been confirmed by Phil Spencer, who let it be known that the Call of Duty company’s previous forecast that games wouldn’t arrive on the service until 2024 is on target (via VGC).
“I think that’s accurate. I would love it if there was some kind of secret celebration drop that’s coming in the next couple of weeks – there’s not,” he assured. “Definitely when we think about the new games that are there, I would be straight with people, right. If we were going to put them in the subscription this year, I would tell people.”
The executive acknowledged that some will be disappointed, but reminded everyone that the acquisition was made with the long term in mind. " I know there’ll be some disappointment about that. This acquisition is definitely long-term. So the fact that we’re not hitting day one with a bunch of games dropping in to Game Pass is a little bit of a downer, but I’m very excited about the future. And I just want to be straight with people that that’s where we are.”
Will Call of Duty get exclusive content on Xbox?
The purchase of Activision Blizzard has left some doubts in the air, which Phil Spencer has tried to clarify with alacrity. The head of the division has confirmed that Xbox will not receive exclusive content. Moreover, the executive has stressed that the goal is to ensure parity between all platforms, so there will not even be exclusive betas on a single system:
“I don’t want you to feel like there’s content you’re missing out, there are skins you’re missing out, there’s timing that you’re missing out on. That’s not the goal. The goal is 100% parity across all platforms as much as we can for launch and content.”
Xbox has signed an agreement with Sony, Nintendo, and other companies that guarantees the release of new installments of Call of Duty for at least the next decade. The next game to be released - still without a Switch version - is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, available November 10 on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PS4, PS5 and PC.