Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 needs to justify Xbox Game Pass price hike

Almost every year since its inception in 2003, we’ve been treated to a new Call of Duty game on an annual basis.

Well, I say “treated”, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III has fun remastered multiplayer maps from MW2 (2009), its single-player offering was certainly lacking. On the aggregate website Metacritic, it scored just 56 from critics and 2.1 from users, making it one of the worst-scoring Call of Duty games of all time.

Check out the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 trailer below!

In my campaign review of Modern Warfare III, I said: “If there’s anything to take away from this year's disappointing release is that now Microsoft owns Activision, I’d like to think that Microsoft wants better for this series and I can only hope that this is the catalyst for ending Call of Duty annual releases, at least for the foreseeable future. Call of Duty deserved much better than this churned-out disappointment.”

While there’s no sign of annual releases ending anytime soon, I still have hopes that with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision, the series will return to form starting with this year's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

Of course, there’s no real way to tell whether Black Ops 6 will be the game that we hope it will be until it's released. At the time of writing, we’ve only had a glitzy trailer for its single-player campaign and a couple of Zombies trailers. As promising as those trailers have been, trailers exist to bring the hype and aim to manipulate us to make a purchase.

However, while gamers on PlayStation will need to make a standalone purchase for Black Ops 6, which will be no issue for the millions of fans, those who subscribe to Xbox Game Pass (and on PC) will be able to access the full game with an active subscription.

Activision

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be the first game to launch on Xbox Game Pass, and with that, Microsoft will hope that it not only retains existing subscribers but also brings in new fans too. That being said, Microsoft does have one potential stumbling black and that’s the recent and controversial 25% price hike announcement which will be implemented in September 2024.

Granted, Black Ops 6 won't be included in all Xbox Game Pass tiers, with the Core tier being excluded. But there will understandably be fans who will stick firmly to their guns and may cancel their subscriptions as an act of protest.

Yet, take for example the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, which will jump from £12.99 to £14.99 per month. I for one never like to see a price increase, but even before Black Ops 6, if we were already being charged £14.99 up to this point for the last couple of years at least, this tier would still likely represent good value for money.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will still include hundreds of games, online multiplayer, exclusive DLC, discounts and now that Microsoft owns Activision, the chances are that it will not only include most games from the publisher but also every Call of Duty game in existence.

Activision

The major caveat to the price increase is that before September 2024, all games, including first-party titles would have been included on launch day, a feature soon to be removed from the Xbox Game Pass Core tier.

As much as I hate paying more money for just about anything, I believe that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will still represent good value for money, especially now that it will include Black Ops 6 for the upper tiers and every game in the series going forward. Whether it represents value for anyone else, is up to them to decide.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be released on 25 October 2024 for PC, PlayStation and Xbox.