Microsoft Is Reminding Xbox Game Pass Members That They'll Have to Buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 if They Want to Play Day One

Microsoft is sending notifications retired to Xbox Game Pass members reminding them that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 won’t beryllium successful the subscription work this year, truthful if they privation to play the crippled astatine launch, they’ll person to bargain it.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches globally connected Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5, PC via Battle.net, Xbox connected PC, and Steam, and Nintendo Switch 2 connected Friday, October 23, 2026. Microsoft has decided to instrumentality with $70 arsenic the modular variation terms constituent for Call of Duty this year, resisting the temptation to spell to $80 oregon beyond. The Vault Edition costs $100.

With Modern Warfare 4, Call of Duty is surely changing tactics. For one, Activision has a Switch 2 mentation ready. Two, it’s yet leaving the past procreation of consoles behind. And three, Modern Warfare 4 volition not motorboat time 1 connected Game Pass, aft mainline Call of Duty games had done truthful successful erstwhile years.

One of the archetypal decisions caller Xbox brag Asha Sharma made aft she replaced Phil Spencer astatine the apical of Microsoft’s gaming concern was to propulsion caller Call of Duty launches retired of Game Pass, alternatively adding them successful a twelvemonth later, portion cutting the terms of a subscription arsenic portion of a wider effort to rebuild the marque successful the eyes of hardcore fans.

Casual Game Pass subscribers had go accustomed to caller Call of Duty games popping up successful their libraries connected time one, truthful you tin recognize Microsoft’s reasoning here. With the unit to maximize gross astatine Xbox possibly greater than it’s ever been, Microsoft wants to marque definite it captures arsenic galore Call of Duty fans arsenic imaginable astatine launch.

The alteration with Call of Duty is an outlier — different first-party Xbox games stay time 1 launches connected Game Pass, specified arsenic Gears of War: E-Day, Clockwork Revolution, and Fable. Call of Duty, though, is simply a bigger merchandise than each 3 of those games combined, and Microsoft intelligibly felt it needed to determination the needle backmost towards crippled income and the gross it brings successful for its biggest franchise.

Call of Duty notification sent via the Xbox app.

This each ties into the ongoing statement astir whether Game Pass time 1 launches cannibalize sales. It’s an contented that has snapped astatine Microsoft’s heels ever since it launched the subscription service. Perhaps you could instrumentality the removal of Call of Duty arsenic the last connection connected the statement — if Call of Duty can’t marque Game Pass marque sense, what can? But it volition beryllium absorbing to spot what Sharma does with Game Pass going forward. Amid rumors of a intermission connected caller Game Pass deals with 3rd parties, adjacent to nary maturation connected console, and the ongoing Xbox concern “reset” that looks acceptable to effect successful a fistful of crippled studios either closing oregon being sold off, the aboriginal is unclear for Microsoft’s subscription service.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].