Call of Duty finally comes to Game Pass with Modern Warfare 3 release

polygon.com:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 drops on Game Pass on July 24, Microsoft announced Tuesday. It’s the first Call of Duty game to come to Microsoft’s subscription service under the company’s ownership of Activision Blizzard. Modern Warfare 3 will be available on Game Pass for Xbox consoles, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Ultimate.

Activision and lead developer Sledgehammer Games released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in November 2023. Modern Warfare 3 is a direct sequel to the franchise’s 2022 game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, letting players battle alongside series mainstays Captain Price, Ghost, and the rest of Task Force 141 on their international manhunt for bad guy Vladimir Makarov. Modern Warfare 3 also includes the series traditional multiplayer mode and Zombies, reimagined here as a co-op player-versus-environment extraction mode.

Microsoft announced earlier this year that 2024’s Call of Duty game, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, will be a day-one release for Game Pass subscribers. But in between that announcement and the October release of Black Ops 6, Microsoft updated its Game Pass subscription offerings; the company raised the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and phased out its basic Game Pass tier, replacing it with Xbox Game Pass Standard. The new Game Pass Standard will not include day-one releases — a major change in Microsoft’s strategy.

Microsoft closed its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October 2023, 21 months after announcing plans to buy the Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush publisher. Since closing the deal, Microsoft has made little headway in bringing Activision Blizzard’s back catalog to Game Pass. However, Microsoft did release Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo 4 to console and PC Game Pass subscribers back in March.