Recently, a suspected advertisement for "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4" sparked heated discussion among players. In the advertisement, Activision clearly used "not on Xbox Game Pass this year" as one of its selling points, highlighting Microsoft's major shift in subscription service strategy.
According to a ResetEra user, he saw this pre-order advertisement for "Modern Warfare 4" on social platforms. The main part of the advertisement promotes the "Campaign Mode Early Access" privileges that can be enjoyed by pre-ordering the game. However, in a prominent position, a line of large fonts clearly reads: "Not on Xbox Game Pass this year."
This will be the first time since 2023 that the "Call of Duty" series is absent from the Game Pass starting lineup. Both "Black Ops 6" in 2024 and "Black Ops 7" in 2025 were simultaneously launched on the subscription service on the launch day.
In April 2026, while Microsoft announced a reduction in the subscription prices of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, it also confirmed that new "Call of Duty" games released in the future will no longer be added to the service on the launch day, but will be postponed for about a year and not be put into storage until the "next holiday season."
When Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion in 2023, the inclusion of "Call of Duty" in Game Pass was once seen as a core strategy to promote the growth of subscription services. However, in actual operations, the "backlash" effect of the subscription model on the sales of high-cost 3A masterpieces eventually prompted Microsoft to make adjustments.
Newly appointed Xbox CEO Asha Sharma led the change, lowering the monthly fee for Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 and the PC version to $13.99 in response to players' negative feedback on the price increase and trying to find a new balance between subscription growth and game sales revenue.
