There’s a huge rumor that Activision is turning around on something they introduced to Call of Duty this year.
Update:
Thanks to a spokesperson who reached out, we’re told that this rumor is entirely false! So, that should be a bit of a relief for some of you interested in the next installment.
Original Story…
Call of Duty currently has a Battle Pass monetization with model with multiple tiers. There’s always a free tier, and then a basic Battle Pass, a Battle Pass Bundle, and Blackcell, each priced at roughly $10, $20, and $30 respectively. While gamers who can afford these passes justifiably got more content, one would reasonably question the level of monetization that’s been added to what’s already a retail price game. And there are loyal Call of Duty fans who buy the highest tiers they can year after year, effectively being their whales.
Last January, for the Call of Duty x Squid Game crossover event, Call of Duty Black Ops 6 introduced a premium event track. On top of the basic free track for the event, you could also pay roughly another $10 to get into the premium Squid Game track. This gave you exclusive premium Squid Game branded items, and was not part of the Battle Pass, at any tier.
And no, this is definitely not a misunderstanding of the system. As we reported a month after, hardcore Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans enjoying their Call of Duty x TMNT crossover had to spend potentially as much as $ 90 to get every related item from the event.
This takes us to today’s rumor from The Ghost of Hope:
EXCLUSIVE: Activision/Treyarch are currently planning to make changes to the Battle Pass with the release of Black Ops 7 (2025).
Black Ops 7 will reportedly have more seasonal LTM’s and some of them would be considered “higher value” with unique rewards and different game mechanics/modes BUT the only way to play the LTMs will be to have the battle pass unlike how it’s currently free for everyone.
They are planning on taking the higher tier skins, loot, and crossover operators for LTMs and making them only accessible to Battle Pass owners instead of having the “Premium Event Track” we currently get during Reloaded updates.
If you weren’t playing Call of Duty Black Ops 6 or paying attention, you might have thought that this was Activision ‘taking away’ something fans wanted. For gamers who believe that Call of Duty is taking advantage of their players with microtransactions, scaling back on those microtransactions is ostensibly a good thing.
Personally, I think gamers would be happier with Call of Duty games with even less microtransactions than this, and even less content than we have now, if that translates into more effort on a polished, satisfying player experience. But whether this turns out to be better or worse will depend on the finer details of how Activision implements this change.
