What you need to know
- A new trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 shows historical figures like former U.S. president Bill Clinton and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
- These figures talk about war in the shadows, hiding away from the public's view.
- Alongside this trailer, Microsoft and Activision officially confirmed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is launching day one in Xbox Game Pass.
- A full reveal for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is coming on June 9, 2024 as part of the Xbox Games Showcase and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct.
History is a lie.
That's the core message of the new live-action trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which shows various historical leaders like former U.S. president Bill Clinton and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein discussing the nature of war in the shadows. Alongside the trailer, Microsoft and Activision have officially confirmed via Xbox Wire that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be launching day one in Xbox Game Pass.
You can check out the trailer below.
A full reveal for the game is coming on June 9, 2024 as part of the Xbox Games Showcase and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct. While Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo 4 was added to Microsoft's gaming subscription service back in March, this move will mark the first day one inclusion of an Activision Blizzard King title in the service since Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 billion in October 2023.
Call of Duty will remain a multiplatform franchise, per Microsoft's binding commitments, meaning players on Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows PC will all be able to buy the game when it launches later in 2024, even though Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass remain restricted to Xbox consoles and PC hardware, respectively.
A Call of Duty four years in the making
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has had a longer development time than any title in the franchise, with work spanning across the last four years. Development has been led by Treyarch, though naturally this game has received development support from almost every team under the Activision Publishing wing.
Recent Call of Duty games have suffered from a lack of development time, with the annual releases of the franchise demanding additional resources and studios as fast or faster than Activision could pile them in. Last year's entry, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) had a campaign that was reportedly developed in just 16 months, which in turn reportedly demanded massive crunch and led to a poorly-received story mode, though the multiplayer was popular among the playerbase.
Analysis: A simply seismic move
There's simply no other way of putting it: This is a massive move. Call of Duty hasn't been associated with the Xbox brand since 2014's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which will be a decade old this fall. Having that association again, alongside making this a first-party Xbox Game Pass launch, is gargantuan. We'll have to wait and see how everything pans out, but this is the correct (and frankly, needed) commitment after the slog that was closing the acquisition.
Make no mistake, I'm still frustrated with some of Microsoft's recent choices. This is a great burst of positive energy though, and I hope they can correctly build on it in the coming weeks and months.
Hopefully we'll also be seeing other additions to Xbox Game Pass from the Activision Blizzard King library soon. There's a litany of Call of Duty games alone that can be added in bursts or patches in the leadup to this game's launch, not to mention titles like Spyro, Crash, and Diablo games outside of the most recent entry.
