Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 to be added to Xbox Game Pass this week ahead of Black Ops 6 launch

It was reported last month that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 will be coming to Xbox Game Pass, the latest entry in the series and the first to be added to Game Pass following Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. Now, multiple sources have confirmed that we can expect to see it come to the service on July 24th, with an announcement expected the day before.

July 24th was first mentioned by the XboxEra podcast, before being corroborated by prominent leaker eXtas1s. Modern Warfare 3 will be released for both console and PC Game Pass subscribers but it won’t see a Cloud Gaming release. This comes just weeks before the first Black Ops 6 is set to begin, giving players a first look at the next entry in the series before it launches on October 25th.

Older Activision titles, such as the earlier Call of Duty games, Crash Bandicoot, and the many other franchises under its belt, are expected to begin being added to Xbox Game Pass in August. There is no confirmation as to whether this will include Game Pass for PC, but with many of the games having PC ports, it would make sense. This is exciting news for PC gamers as older entries such as Call of Duty Black Ops 3 are available on Steam for £44.99, but I refuse to pay that much for it when the console versions can be had for as little as £5.

Microsoft is set to increase its pricing of Xbox Game Pass, with the Ultimate tier increasing to $19.99 per month, a move that the FTC criticized calling it “product degradation” saying “”Product degradation — removing the most valuable games from Microsoft’s new service — combined with price increases for existing users, is exactly the sort of consumer harm from the merger the FTC has alleged,” according to a recent filing.

This follows Microsoft recently closing multiple studios, including Tango Gameworks, the studio behind Hi-Fi Rush, which caused a lot of backlash from the gaming community. With a string of low sales from the likes of Hellblade 2, it likely won’t be the last studio that we see Microsoft close down as it looks to recoup its massive investment of over $70 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard King in 2023, which a former employee claimed it now “needs to dig itself out of.”