If you’ve been paying attention to the Xbox brand over the last couple of months, you’ll know that plenty of time has been spent discussing the state of the Xbox Game Pass. Now, if you listen to people like Phil Spencer, they’ll tell you that everything is fine, that there are “more Xbox users than ever before,” even though that’s not exactly correct. Regardless, during the company’s recent showcase, they emphasized heavily that just about every single game they had coming out would be available on the service, which included Call of Duty Black Ops 6 on launch day. That’s a first for the title, and it made things interesting for developer Treyarch.
In a chat with VGC, senior director of production Yale Miller, revealed that the team honestly wasn’t sure when the game would arrive on Xbox Game Pass at launch:
“We haven’t known about Game Pass for that long. It was something that we were questioning whether or not it was going to happen.”
Once they knew that there would be an option for people to just play the game without buying the game, including many non-fans of the franchise, Treyarch decided to do its best to make the game not just fun but accessible to those who haven’t played these modes in the past:
“So whether it’s Zombies – this big epic experience with huge questlines and a great story, there’s a lot of players who just won’t know, will have never played a round-based zombie experience. So how can we teach people that with multiplayer and foundational stuff on movement? There’s a lot to show players, so we’ve been thinking from the beginning about how we bring players in.”
The company thinking about this is a good thing. Based on past experience and sales, Black Ops 6 will be a big game on all the platforms it’s on. Plus, while the Xbox Game Pass has been stalling in terms of subscribers, there are undoubtedly those who have it who haven’t delved into the FPS franchise in the past. Thus, they could feel compelled to give it a shot if they hear good things about it before launch.
The true question is whether the game will live up to the hype and expectations surrounding the series. The last mainline entry that came out in 2023 was controversial out the wazoo due to its incredibly short campaign and certain other elements.
Whether Treyarch will do better remains to be seen, but the first trailer does paint a good picture of what’s to come.
