Microsoft Is Bringing Activision Blizzard Games To Game Pass

The deal could have long-term ramifications for the exclusivity of the Call of Duty maker’s games going forward.


Alongside news that Microsoft is preparing to acquire Activision Blizzard for $70 billion, the Xbox console maker has confirmed that games from the recently troubled Call of Duty and Warcraft publisher will make their way to Xbox Game Pass.


An exact date for when any of Activision Blizzard’s games will arrive on Microsoft’s Netflix-style subscription service has not been announced, nor do we yet know exactly which games from the publisher’s catalog will hit Game Pass. However, acquiring Activision Blizzard does mean effectively acquiring franchises such as Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Diablo, Overwatch, and Warcraft. And in its official announcement, Microsoft said it will “offer as many Activision Blizzard games” as possible for PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass.


This includes both new titles and “games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog,” so you can probably expect to see games in the StarCraft and Warcraft series on PC, as well as Call of Duty games across both Xbox consoles and PC. Whether Blizzard’s popular MMO World of Warcraft, which still requires a monthly subscription from players to access all of its content, will get folded into PC Game Pass somehow remains to be seen. Additionally, other Activision Blizzard properties such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, and Tony Hawk, among many others, could now make their way to Game Pass in some form. In short, the service’s offerings are probably going to expand significantly.


Read the full article on Kotaku