Faithful Call of Duty fans who were hopeful the game’s content would soon be making its way to Xbox Game Pass will need to be patient a while longer, after a May 1 discovery penned in 2025 as the earliest CoD could hit the subscription service.
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority’s final report on April 26 mentioned that the long-standing FPS franchise would land on Game Pass well after the planned Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2022.
This is mainly because, as part of the merger, Microsoft would honor all prior agreements between Sony and Activision, including an existing deal that prevents Microsoft from adding any CoD titles to its game subscription “for a number of years”—regardless of whether the acquisition was ever actually approved by the U.K. authority.
The CMA review ultimately spelled doom for Microsoft’s plans to acquire Activision with the purchase blocked in April 2023. The CMA stated Microsoft’s solution “failed to effectively address concerns in the cloud gaming sector,” and that the purchase would be “stifling competition in this growing market” if it was allowed to go through.
Related: Existing Sony deals could restrict Microsoft putting CoD on Game Pass
A concern of partner Sony Interactive was that—despite its ongoing marketing agreement with Activision—should CoD hit the Game Pass, the subscription service would effectively undercut the PlayStation’s full purchase sale of each copy of the game.
With the huge acquisition halted, it’s back to the drawing board for a number of expansion agreements for Microsoft, who had drafted a 10-year deal with Nintendo to bring CoD to the Switch. A number of titles have already landed on Game Pass, including League of Legends and VALORANT via a deal with Riot Games in Dec. 2022.
While the CMA report did reveal the 2025 date as the proposed end to the Activision and Sony blockade of the Game Pass, the decision to add CoD to the Game Pass will ultimately be with the Microsoft bosses.
And with the company still deep in negotiations over their Activision purchase, Game Pass gamers shouldn’t be expecting CoD titles to come their way anytime soon.
