Microsoft is bringing the latest Call of Duty game to Xbox Cloud Gaming on day one. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be available to stream for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers at 10AM PT on its launch day, October 25. Modern Warfare III and the battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone arrive on the platform on the same day.
This will be the first time Call of Duty games have been playable on Microsoft’s cloud gaming platform. “Game Pass Ultimate members will be able to enjoy Call of Duty in more places than ever before, including on their consoles, PCs, mobile devices, select Samsung TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Meta Quest devices,” Xbox VP of Gaming Experiences & Platforms Ashley McKissick wrote in a blog post. “This opens up even more ways to play Black Ops 6 starting on day one at launch.”
Ubisoft owns the rights to streaming Activision games after Microsoft cut a 2023 deal to gain regulatory approval for its purchase of the Call of Duty maker. So, Ubisoft appears to have licensed it back to Microsoft (and could do so with other cloud platforms).
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will have a full campaign set in the early 1990s. The game will add omnimovement, the new fluid mobility option that lets you sprint, slide, and dive in any direction.” Also new is Supine Prone, “the ability to rotate while prone,” which Activision describes as adding more freedom of movement and tactical flexibility. Its maps will span the Middle East, southern Europe, Russia and the US.
Modern Warfare III is last year’s installment, which came to Game Pass in July. One of the lowest-rated games in the franchise’s history, it’s a direct sequel to Modern Warfare II. The game follows a special operations unit tracking Russian ultranationalist war criminal Vladimir Makaro, who is (tsk, tsk) hatching a plot to start World War III. The game includes a single-player campaign, multiplayer and an open-world Zombies mode (just in time for Halloween).
Finally, Call of Duty: Warzone is Activision’s 2022 answer to the free-to-play battle royale trend. As with genre stalwarts like Fortnite, you parachute onto a shrinking game map and have at it. Locations include Urzikstan, Rebirth Island and Fortune’s Keep.