Call of Duty reminds players that Modern Warfare 4 won't be coming to Game Pass this year

5 hours ago 15

Published Jun 30, 2026, 6:48 AM EDT

A change of plan from the last few entries

Three soldiers in Modern Warfare 4's DMZ mode hanging onto the rope of an aircraft flying away.

In 2024, Xbox added Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to its Game Pass subscription service, granting everyone who uses it access to the latest entry in the series. This didn't arrive until July, however, which meant the game had been out for around nine months already by that point. A few months later, Black Ops 6 joined Game Pass at launch, and the following year, Black Ops 7 did the same. Microsoft pledged that this would be the protocol going forward: all new Call of Duty games would be on Game Pass at launch.

However, in April this year, Xbox went back on its word: future Call of Duty games will not be on Game Pass when they're released. Instead, they'll join the service almost a year later. This news came alongside a price reduction for Game Pass, with the Ultimate tier dropping from $29.99 to $22.99.

Not everyone follows gaming industry news, however, especially not casual gamers who stereotypically only play Call of Duty. Many of those players could be in for a harsh surprise come the release of Modern Warfare 4 on Oct. 23, expecting to gain access via Game Pass but not finding it anywhere.

As a result, Modern Warfare 4's marketing is now explicitly stating that the game is "not on Xbox Game Pass this year." This ad, originally spotted by CharlieIntel, is encouraging players to pre-order digitally to gain seven-day early access to the campaign. Chances are, we'll see this line a few more times as marketing for the game ramps up over the coming months.

Modern Warfare 4 is taking the series to Korea for the first time, at the start of a conflict between North and South Korea. Alongside that, we know a lot about the game's multiplayer portion already, and DMZ is returning, for a colossal extraction shooter third mode that will go toe-to-toe with some of the greats in the genre.