Activision has reached a strange new milestone: it is now advertising what Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will not include. The publisher is pushing the game with a message that it will not be in Game Pass at launch, using that absence as a reason to pre-order rather than as an awkward footnote.
That is a sharp break from Microsoft’s recent pitch for its gaming subscription. After buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in 2023, Microsoft clearly wanted Call of Duty to help sell Game Pass subscriptions. Instead, the economics have gone the other way, with reports pointing to weaker-than-hoped subscriber growth and real pressure on Microsoft’s game business. When a subscription starts eating into blockbuster sales, the marketing copy gets very creative very quickly.
The Game Pass absence is front and center
The banner spotted online reads like corporate speak with a straight face: ”Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Guarantee early access to the campaign. Not in Game Pass this year. Pre-order now.” That is not just a sales pitch; it is a sign that Activision thinks a missing subscription perk can be sold as a feature.
The company is also leaning on the usual pre-order carrots, including campaign access and the promise of a new entry in a series that still moves units whether or not a subscription service is involved. This is where the industry has landed after a few years of ”day one” enthusiasm: big publishers still like subscriptions, but not when they have to hand over their biggest releases for the same monthly fee.
Microsoft’s Call of Duty bet is getting expensive
Bloomberg has previously reported that Microsoft’s Game Pass price increase last year was tied to losses connected to Call of Duty, including a reported $300 million hit from putting Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 into the service. That helps explain the recent pivot: Xbox lowered the price of Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass in the spring, but dropped the promise that new Call of Duty games would appear on launch day.
It is also a reminder that the subscription wars are not won by stacking more content into one place. Sony has spent years avoiding a similar trap with its own tentpole releases, while Microsoft has been trying to make Game Pass the center of its gaming strategy. Modern Warfare 4 suggests the company is now trimming the perks before the math gets any uglier.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 release details
- Release date: 23 October
- Platforms: PC (Steam, Microsoft Store, Battle.net), PS5, Xbox Series X, S, and Nintendo Switch 2
- Promised features: a dark campaign, grounded multiplayer, DMZ extraction mode and Russian localization
The interesting question is whether this becomes the new normal for blockbuster games: launch outside the subscription, then arrive later only if the numbers justify it. For Microsoft, that would be a retreat from its original pitch. For Activision, it is simply a reminder that the biggest franchise in the room still knows exactly how to charge full price for attention.