Finally, our lengthy national nightmare is over. After years of waiting and suffering, I can confirm that the next Call of Duty: Black Ops game will bring back the franchise’s iconic “Dude with guns sitting on the cover” iconography. Truly, a time for celebration.
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A new year of course means a new entry in Activision’s long-running and super popular first-person shooter series, Call of Duty. As revealed last week, the next game is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, a new entry in the franchise’s sub-series about spies, future warfare, and conspiracy theories. Weirdly this game is still arriving on last-gen consoles. But I’d be surprised if it wasn't also available on current-gen systems.
Xbox president Sarah Bond indicated all Microsoft games, including those developed by Activision, will launch straight into Game Pass.
Phil Spencer, Xbox boss, was asked how he would handle his and Bobby Kotick’s different ideologies after the deal to buy Activision Blizzard closed. "Well, there's a different person making the decisions," Spencer laughed.
New Call of Duty games sell for $70 and usually shift around 25 million copies, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. By releasing this year’s Call of Duty straight into Game Pass, Microsoft potentially risks cannibalizing those sales. Of course, Activision will also launch Call of Duty across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC as a game that can be bought outright. But with Game Pass subscriber numbers failing to grow meaningfully Microsoft is under pressure to attract new customers. Adding a mainline Call of Duty game at launch will no doubt help with that. The Verge has reported Microsoft is considering raising the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate again.
Microsoft is yet to announce a release date, pricing, or platforms for Black Ops 6, but it will reportedly launch across PC, last-gen and current-gen consoles.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpooted@gmail.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
