This means that much of the franchise’s history still remains unplayable through Game Pass, going all the way back to even the very first Call of Duty game from 2003. According to PCGamer, a source from Activision has said that there are plans to bring more of the games over to the service some time this year. The exact timeline of when this will happen remains unknown.

It is worth noting that many of the older games in the Call of Duty franchise remain seminal even to this day. This includes entries like 2005’s Call of Duty 2, 2007’s Modern Warfare and its follow-ups from 2009 and 2011, and much of the Black Ops series, which started in 2010.

According to industry analyst Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis, October 2025’s price hike for Game Pass subscription largely came down to the fact that Microsoft had projected quite a bit of lost revenue from bringing Call of Duty to the service on day one of release. Unfortunately, the necessary growth in subscriber numbers didn’t happen, which necessitated prices going up. “It meant Game Pass pricing had to be increased to offset some of the commercial implications of the approach, which had its own impact on retention of longer-term subscribers,” he explained.

In another post, Harding-Rolls has also noted that Call of Duty no longer coming to the subscription service on day one gives Microsoft to open the door for similar action with its other first-party releases. While first-party games on the service will remain “a core piece of the offer,” he wrote, “this opens the door to potential windowing of other new 1st-party releases,” allowing more games to generate higher revenue for a year before coming to the service.

Whether these older Call of Duty games that are reportedly coming to Game Pass will be available through the much-rumored “Triton” subscription tier, which only offers first-party games, also remains to be seen. The tier was discovered by dataminers finding references to its codename, as well as a list of games made by first-party studios, which included Halo Wars 2, Gears 5, and Fallout 4, among many others.

Another report, courtesy of Windows Central’s Jez Corden, has also implied that Microsoft might be having internal discussions about a “pick your own plan” style of subscription tier for Game Pass.

“A sort of ‘pick your own plan’ formula for Xbox Game Pass is on the cards, essentially, where users can effectively decide what packages of content they want to see as part of their plan,” writes Corden. There have also been reports about the Triton tier only offering Cloud Gaming capabilities with a time limit.

Harding-Rolls has also noted that a 12-month “window” before bringing in a Call of Duty title to the subscription service will “generate significantly more revenue” than a spike in Game Pass subscribers would have. “It will also support sales on PlayStation and other platforms,” he wrote, before going on to mention that this doesn’t necessarily mean that day-one releases of games on Game Pass are dead.

“This is still a core piece of the offer,” he wrote. “However, this opens the door to potential windowing of other new 1st-party releases.” Whether this ultimately means that we might see a year-long delay between the release of, for example, a new Gears of War game and its arrival on Game Pass is currently unknown. However, by doing this with Call of Duty, Microsoft has certainly given itself the window to do so in the future. As for how this will affect the Ultimate tier of Game Pass, which promises day-one first-party releases, remains to be seen.

In a lengthier report, he had noted that the decision to bring Call of Duty to Game Pass likely stemmed from an attempt to “turbo-charge the service” by bringing in more subscribers. However, this has seemingly not been the case, and a game on the scale of Call of Duty was not able to draw in enough new subscribers to offset the revenue lost by simply selling the title. “It meant Game Pass pricing had to be increased to offset some of the commercial implications of the approach, which had its own impact on retention of longer-term subscribers.”

In the meantime, reports have also been going around of Microsoft exploring the potential for a cheaper subscription tier for Game Pass that would only include first-party games. Codenamed “Triton”, this tier is also expected to include Cloud Gaming as one of its core features. However, when compared to the limitless implementation of Cloud Gaming on other tiers, Triton’s version is expected to include a time limit, bringing it in line with Nvidia’s GeForce Now.

More recent reports have indicated that Microsoft’s plans might extend even beyond that, with the potential for a “pick your own plan” option being discussed. According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, such a plan is apparently “on the table,” and would allow potential subscribers to only pay for the things that they might actually want from the service. Users who don’t play Fortnite, for example, can get rid of the Fortnite Crew benefits. On the flip side, there is also the potential for users to bundle their subscriptions, like those for Minecraft Realms or World of Warcraft. The same rumors also indicate that a Family Plan might be in the works for Game Pass as well.

Furthermore, it’s allegedly the next game in the rebooted Modern Warfare series. It’s easy to forget that the last game, Modern Warfare 3, launched in November 2023 (and became the worst-rated mainline entry in the series). Rumors emerged months later that a follow-up was “well into development” and it’s seemingly on track for launch this year.

The release window itself isn’t surprising, given Call of Duty’s tendency to launch in either October or November. But will it launch closer to the end of the month? Will it attempt an earlier date to further widen the gap with Grand Theft Auto 6? It’s hard to say, though Microsoft reportedly wants its other titles, like Halo: Campaign Evolved and Gears of War: E-Day, to avoid clashing with the latter.

Whatever the case, you probably shouldn’t expect it to be available on day one for Game Pass if other rumors turn out to be true. In the meantime, check out our review for Modern Warfare 3.

Windows Central’s Jez Corden noted this on The Xbox Two Podcast when responding to a user who said the company may prioritize “more niche and PC focused” ventures for the next generation. “Maybe. I mean, it’ll be interesting to see if they take Call of Duty out of Game Pass this year, which is a possibility from what I’ve heard.”

While Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (alongside Indiana Jones and the Great Circle) earned $465 million for Xbox in December 2024, the latter also reportedly gave up over $300 million in sales. We don’t know the impact of Game Pass on Call of Duty sales in 2025, or whether price increases managed to mitigate any potential losses.

However, the latest entry likely did enough damage on its own, thanks to the awful campaign and generally stale quality. Such was the debacle it caused Activision to commit to no longer releasing Modern Warfare and Black Ops sequels back-to-back.

Of course, most likely due to the free-to-play Warzone, Call of Duty was one of the most top-played titles in 2025. Time will tell if that fact has an impact on the next mainline title remaining on Game Pass or not.

You’re going to go to Avalon, where there are no loadouts and all of your killing tools must be scavenged off the bodies of your enemies. It’s a massive place with an ever-shrinking boundary in which your squad of four must fight for every inch of ground you gain against no less than 25 other teams.

Your loadout is dependent on what you’re able to find, but upgrading gear is shaping up to be quite seamless, per this deep dive on the official website for those who want the full rundown of what this one brings to the table. The short version is that your weapons come with unique Archetypes, and finding one you like lets you upgrade it via Attachment Kits, improving on its rarity with apparently immediate effects. You’re going to need every advantage you can get as your opponents are going to come at you on land, from the air, and even from the water, depending on the vehicles they’re able to gain access to.

Of course, the same goes for you and your team. It’s a free-for-all with a lot of cool stuff, and it should keep Call of Duty: Warzone fans occupied for hours. Blackout players will find a lot of familiar tools like the Sensor Dart, Trauma Kit, Grappling Hook, and the return of the Perk System, albeit in a streamlined form.

Blacks Ops Royale is free to play and drops on March 12 at 9 PM PT. You can check out the trailer and all its chaos below.

“The rumor factory working overtime. This ain’t it,” it said succinctly.

The title would allegedly launch alongside a “traditional” Call of Duty multiplayer title and the next Xbox, which is reportedly targeting next year if everything goes according to plan. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Activision did something similar with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare Remastered launching on the same day (and the latter being a tied to the former).

It all sounds well and good, but the keyword here is “floated.” It doesn’t necessarily mean that a separate Zombies title is in development (or has even been greenlit). Microsoft and Activision have been fairly tight-lipped about the next game in the series, simply committing to no longer releasing back-to-back Black Ops and Modern Warfare titles. Which you can thank the negative reception of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 for.

In the meantime, the latest entry in the franchise continues to receive updates and isn’t suffering too greatly in sales. It topped US software sales charts for January 2026, despite its Steam player base dropping to historic new lows in the same month. How Activision can reignite interest in the franchise remains to be seen, but maybe it will return with a vengeance, as former Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra believes. Time will tell.

The original plan was to seemingly launch on the new console alongside Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto 6 and compete with the game for player attention. However, with the console itself rumored to be delayed thanks to global memory shortages, new plans have apparently been drawn up that revolve around two separate Call of Duty games being made for the next Xbox. Comparisons were drawn with the release of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered. This also indicates that we might see a standalone release of the franchise’s Zombies mode alongside a standard multiplayer release.

“Sources indicate to me that the delay on the next Xbox has ‘hurt’ a lot of COD’s marketing plans as they wanted Modern Warfare 4 to be a launch title and draw a lot of hype to compete with people’s attention alongside GTA VI,” wrote the leaker on social media.

“Because of this delay, the idea of two Call of Duty games launching with the next Xbox has been floated. A traditional Call of Duty multiplayer and a standalone Zombies title presumably developed by Treyarch. Likely similar to that of Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare Remastered were both released together.”

As for Activision’s wider business plans, the leaker has also reported that Microsoft wants the company to be “more agile”, and less devoted to its yearly release schedule for the Call of Duty franchise. In terms of software development, being agile means having a clearly-defined project development pipeline that can quickly pivot to new ideas. This, according to TheGhostOfHope, would have apparently allowed Activision to have a more competent version of the Call of Duty: DMZ mode to cash in on the hype around extraction shooters than what we ultimately got.

“Microsoft wants Activision to be more agile and less attached to annualized releases in the future. The consensus is that a more quick and coherent product/development pipeline would have allowed them to cash in on the extraction shooter hype sooner with a DMZ update for example.”

It is worth noting that, going by other rumors surrounding next-generation consoles, the timelines don’t quite match up precisely. Before RAM prices skyrocketed, leading to several hardware delays, reports had indicated that Sony and Microsoft were eyeing a 2027 launch for their respective next-gen consoles. Considering previous PlayStations and Xboxes having come out in Winter, in time for the Holiday season, it is likely that even the PS6 and next Xbox would have come out around November in 2027, which would have been a full year after the initial launch of Grand Theft Auto 6—out on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19th this year. The leaker could, however, be referring to the next-gen launch of GTA 6.

Activision had also announced back in December that it was moving away from back-to-back releases for sub-series in the overarching Call of Duty franchise. This means that, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 being the latest game, the next one wouldn’t be from the Black Ops series. Similarly, the next Modern Warfare won’t be followed by another one.

However, the latter serves as the MVP when it comes to overall hardware spending. At $248 million, it’s up 16 percent over the previous year, which was enough to offset declining sales for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Switch 1. The fact that it achieved this while ranking second in dollar and unit sales is equally impressive.

The only new game release was Bandai Namco’s Code Vein 2, which reached 11th in the overall charts. However, it topped the PC sales chart that considered all storefronts. Perhaps even more surprising is that Final Fantasy 7 Remake re-entered the top ten charts, going from 225th place in December 2025 to ninth, thanks to its Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 ports.

If that’s not a good sign that Square Enix made the right move to go multiplatform with the trilogy, we don’t know what is. The next entry, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, is out on June 3rd for both platforms.

It’s been a good two years for the title that aimed to bring the Call of Duty experience to its players’ smartphones, but it was only a matter of time before the curtain came down on the game. Despite its Android version drawing users’ ire due to various issues, the game has managed its fair share of praise. However, it seemingly didn’t gather enough traction for Activision to justify creating more content for it, which brings us to now.

In a statement, Activision showed appreciation for the developers behind the experience and its players alike, whilst assuring its community that seasonal content is still being made for Call of Duty: Mobile.

“The servers for Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile will go offline on April 17, 2026, after which the game will no longer be available for play. Until that time, players may continue to access the game and engage with existing content…Player passion and feedback continue to shape the future of the Call of Duty franchise, and we look forward to delivering meaningful seasonal content and updates to Call of Duty: Mobile.”

If you’ve been a fan of Warzone Mobile, now is a good time to get your pals together and enjoy the next two months of the game before it’s gone forever. Or you could switch over to Call of Duty: Mobile – surely that won’t kick the bucket anytime soon, right? It’s your call at the moment, but the clock is ticking until April.

The post is a the latest iteration of the Xbox Excellence Awards, which was created last year to celebrate how players engaged with various releases on Xbox. The Store Rating category lists 2025 games with the best ratings on the Microsoft Store, with an added requirement of the title having at least 500 ratings. Player Engagements is about the average number of hours spent on a game by each player within the first six weeks of a game’s release. Daily Active Users celebrates titles, expansions or updates with the highest single-day active users throughout the year. And finally Units Sold is fairly self-explanatory.

Going down the lists, you’ll find many of the biggest releases of the year, from ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6, as well as award-winning RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Indie titles have also been well-represented, with games like Crime Scene Cleaner and Satisfactory making it into the lists. There also doesn’t seem to have been a singular genre to dominate the lists, since everything from sports games like EA Sports Madden NFL 26, to fantasy adventure life sims like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and even fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics are well represented.

Curiously, none of the games was present in all four of the categories. At most, we got to see titles like Borderlands 4 being able to make it on to three of them: Player Engagement, Daily Active Users and Units Sold. Even ARC Raiders, which has seen quite a bit of success, is only on the Units Sold and Daily Active Users lists.

Microsoft has also emphasized that the lists represent a diverse collection of games developed by studios of varying sizes. All in all, it represents 48 unique developers based out of 13 countries, with 24 publishers having had a hand in their release. 19 of the games were self-published. “Taken as a whole, it’s an encapsulation of development on Xbox – we want gaming to reach you wherever you are, and for the teams making those games to find you from wherever they are,” wrote the company.

Full list of games:

Store Rating:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Crime Scene Cleaner
• Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dreamcore
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Lies of P: Overture
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Little Nightmares III
• Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
• Minami Lane
• Mullet MadJack
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 4
• Satisfactory
• Silent Hill 2
• Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Player Engagement:

• Borderlands 4
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Farm Together 2
• Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
• Helldivers 2
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• NHL 26
• Rust
• Satisfactory
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Daily Active Users:

• Arc Raiders
• Avowed
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 5
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grounded 2
• Helldivers 2
• Marvel Rivals
• Minecraft
• NBA 2K26
• Rematch
• Roblox
• Rocket League
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Units Sold:

• Arc Raiders
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• EA Sports Madden NFL 26
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Helldivers 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• PGA Tour 2K25
• Ready or Not
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• WWE 2K25