Activision Blizzard Says No Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III or Diablo IV on Game Pass This Year

Microsoft is reportedly planning to close its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard on Friday, October 13. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has already provisionally approved the deal, and a final green light is likely imminent. Anyway, Activision Blizzard didn’t wait for Microsoft to complete its acquisition to share what to expect regarding the release of its latest blockbuster games on Microsoft’s Game Pass service.

In a post on X yesterday, the company chose to answer a very important question in a direct manner: Diablo IV and the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III won’t be coming to the Game Pass library this year. Moreover, the company said that we shouldn’t expect the release of any Activision Blizzard games in Game Pass this year.

“While we do not have plans to put Modern Warfare III or Diablo IV into Game Pass this year, once the deal closes, we expect to start working with Xbox to bring our titles to more players around the world. And we anticipate that we would begin adding games into Game Pass sometime in the course of next year, the company said.

It’s awesome to see anticipation building for Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® III. As we continue to work toward regulatory approval of the Microsoft deal, we’ve been getting some questions whether our upcoming and recently launched games will be available via Game Pass.

While we…

— Activision Blizzard (@ATVI_AB) October 9, 2023

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has said many times that it didn’t make financial sense to release Call of Duty games on day one on subscription services. Call of Duty remains one of the best-selling annualized video game franchises, so of course, the company doesn’t want to cannibalize sales during the launch period of these games.

While this statement from Activision Blizzard had to be expected, these plans could still change once Microsoft is in a position to make these decisions. And according to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, we should actually see Activision Blizzard games come to Game Pass this year. “Despite this statement, and per our own sources, we expect to see a ton of new games hit Xbox Game Pass the very minute the deal is finalized,” Corden wrote yesterday.

It’s safe to expect that bringing Activision Blizzard games to PC Game Pass will likely take more time due to the absence of these games on the Microsoft Store. Microsoft may choose to integrate the Xbox app on Windows with Activision Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher, similar to how the Xbox app integrates with the EA desktop app and Ubisoft Connect. On Xbox consoles, however, there are tons of Activision Blizzard games that could make their way to Game Pass for Console. That includes classic Call of Duty games from the Xbox 360 era, which are still enjoying some momentum on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S due to backwards compatibility.