More Call of Duty titles have been added to the Xbox app for PC, signaling a launch to Game Pass could be soon

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As a seasoned gamer with decades of gaming experience under my belt, I can’t help but feel a sense of nostalgia and anticipation as I see these classic Call of Duty titles reappearing on the Microsoft Store. I remember countless hours spent battling it out in Call of Duty: Ghosts or storming the beaches of Normandy in Call of Duty: WWII. However, the hefty price tags are a bit of a letdown for these legacy games.

Previously released Call of Duty games are showing up on the Microsoft Store and the Xbox app for PC, but at this time, they aren’t accessible for Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

The Microsoft Store has added four more titles from the Call of Duty series to its collection: Call of Duty: Ghosts, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Call of Duty: WWII, and Call of Duty: Black Ops III. This comes after the addition of Call of Duty + United Offensive, Call of Duty 2, and Call of Duty: 4 Modern Warfare to the store last week.

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If you’re considering buying any old versions of Call of Duty for Windows that aren’t part of Game Pass yet, you’re welcome to purchase them directly. However, keep in mind that they go for a full price of $60 per standard edition. These games were launched during the period when Call of Duty used to sell paid DLCs. Therefore, if you wish to access additional content from these DLC packs, you’ll need to pay extra for the enhanced versions, which can cost up to $120 each.

These old Call of Duty versions for Windows don’t incorporate Microsoft’s Xbox Play Anywhere feature either. So, if you already own them on Xbox, you would need to buy them again (or wait until they’re included in PC Game Pass) before revisiting these classic games on a Windows machine. However, if you’re an achievement collector, the absence of Play Anywhere support means you can accumulate stacked achievements for each title separately.

The wait for COD on Game Pass continues

In 2023, Microsoft completed the acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, yet the process of incorporating the Activision library into Xbox Game Pass has been gradual.

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The legal challenges posed by regulatory bodies during the merger between Xbox and Activision teams delayed their collaboration, thus preventing any Call of Duty (COD) titles from being added to the Xbox Game Pass library until this year’s Black Ops 6 was released on Oct. 25, 2024. This is why Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) was the last COD game to join the Xbox Game Pass library until then.

It’s unclear when classic Call of Duty games will become available on the Xbox Game Pass service, but their release on Windows platforms suggests an announcement might be coming soon. This pattern mirrors the events leading up to Spyro Reignited Trilogy joining Game Pass, where it was listed in the Microsoft Store before an official announcement. However, Raven Software’s Singularity has been listed on the Microsoft Store for several months without officially being added to Game Pass, indicating that there may not be a fixed schedule for how long after a port a game will be included.

There are clear indicators from the community that Classic Call of Duty titles still hold interest. Previous Call of Duty titles saw a boon in player numbers during the summer of 2023 due to efforts to improve the servers in these older games. Black Ops 3’s Zombies mode has also been a point of interest in recent months. Xbox has a limited window of when it could possibly announce the launch of classic COD titles to Game Pass, as the inclusion of the older games could potentially draw players away from the recently released Black Ops 6. Waiting too long for the announcement could also potentially spoil a reveal for the 2025 Call of Duty title during an Xbox Summer Showcase.

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2024-12-17 12:09