It’s a Big Day for Xbox With Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Now on Game Pass

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, one of the biggest games of the year is now available on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. It’s also available on Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Nvidia GeForce Now on day one, which is a first for the Call of Duty franchise.

This wouldn’t have been possible if Microsoft didn’t acquire Activision Blizzard last year. Since the launch of Sea of Thieves back in 2018, all first-party Xbox games have been released on day one on Game Pass, and Microsoft certainly hopes that putting the latest Call of Duty game on the service on its launch day is going to get millions of news subscribers on board.

For new subscribers, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is only available on PC Game Pass ($11.99/month) and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate ($19.99/month). Microsoft discontinued its cheaper Xbox Game Pass for Console option and launched a new $14.99/month Game Pass Standard tier in September… without day-one games. Obviously, this is also about Microsoft increasing its average revenue per user and compensating for the loss of potential sales due to the game being on Game Pass.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 comes with a solo campaign set during the Gulf War, 12 brand-new Core 6v6 maps in addition to four compact Strike maps, and a round-based  Zombies mode. Otherwise, the main gameplay change this year is the new “Omnimovement” system that lets players slide, sprint, and dive in any direction. You can find a more detailed summary of what to expect on Xbox Wire.

While Microsoft has been slow to add old Activision Blizzard games to the Game Pass library, last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and the free-to-play Warzone mode are also launching on Xbox Cloud Gaming today. These games and Black Ops 6 also support mouse and keyboard input on Microsoft’s cloud gaming service.