Microsoft Gaming has confirmed that Call of Duty Black Ops 6 will not be locked behind a new Game Pass tier.
As reported by Eurogamer, they gave this official statement to the outlet:
“Upon launch, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be playable on Xbox and PC for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Xbox Game Pass for Console members.”
This may seem to be an innocuous detail, but Microsoft correctly assessed that they needed to clarify this situation because of rumors that were going around. Insider Gaming reported that eXtas1stv and shinobi602 believed that Microsoft would be making changes to Game Pass as a result of adding Call of Duty to the subscription. Insider Gaming made it clear that they could not verify the rumor themselves, but their sources were credible enough that the rumor did gain traction.
While some leaks and rumors are clearly made in bad faith, we believe we can give eXtas1stv and shinobi602 the benefit of the doubt. It’s possible that they were talking about speculation among people within the industry, who may not have real insider information, but believed they knew what decisions Microsoft Gaming would make. Alternately, Microsoft may have simply changed their mind.
In any case, we need to remember that there are certain services only available at specific Game Pass tiers, so those will still apply to Call of Duty Black Ops 6. We’ll round them up below:
Game Pass Core, which takes the place of Xbox Live Gold, gives subscribers access to only 25 games. Call of Duty Black Ops 6 will not be available on this tier. As you can see, this tier was not mentioned in Microsoft’s statement.
Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass are specific to Xbox consoles and Microsoft PCs, respectively. Both subscriptions will give you access to Call of Duty Black Ops 6, but with no online multiplayer. Neither tier offers online multiplayer for any of these games.
Finally, Game Pass Ultimate is the top of the heap for Game Pass tiers. On Game Pass Ultimate, you will get Call of Duty Black Ops 6, and you also get online multiplayer on top of it.
In fact, Game Pass Ultimate is required to play online multiplayer on Xbox, and that has been the case for all Call of Duty games except for the free-to-play Call of Duty Warzone. To put it plainly, if you already had an Xbox and you were playing online, you don’t need to pay anything more to get this next Call of Duty. This is the big ace that Microsoft now has over Sony to the Call of Duty fanbase.
Now, this may not be enough to convince most Call of Duty fans, who play these games online with their friends, mostly over the holidays, to get an Xbox Series X|S. However, it may be enough to get them to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate.
Microsoft stands to make more money if these gamers stay on PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5 and buy Call of Duty Black Ops 6 full price on that console. But, we can also see Microsoft playing the long game, getting those gamers interested in switching consoles when the best opportunity comes up.
