Skip to main content

Is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass?

A soldier crouching with his eyes blacked out.
Activision

When Microsoft announced that it was acquiring Activision, the big question on everyone’s mind was what would happen with Call of Duty. Well, it took months of legal battles, but the deal finally went through and the first CoD game to release officially under Microsoft is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Xbox has held firm to its commitment to put all of its first-party titles onto Game Pass on day one for all its subscribers, but is it honoring that deal for the biggest game of the year? We know it isn’t an Xbox exclusive and is still cross-platform, after all. If you have an Xbox and a subscription to Game Pass, you might not need to spend any money on Black Ops 6, but only if you meet one specific requirement.

Is Black Ops 6 on Game Pass?

Soldiers fight in a shopping plaza in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Activison

The short answer is yes, Black Ops 6 is on Game Pass, but not at every tier. Prior to Black Ops 6 launching, Xbox restructured its Game Pass tiers a bit with new pricing and benefits. What you need to know is that you now need to either be a PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate subscriber to get access to any first-party day-one titles.

Recommended Videos

If you have the Core or Standard Game Pass subscriptions, Black Ops 6 will not be available for you and you will either need to upgrade to Ultimate or purchase the game normally to play.

Game Pass Ultimate currently costs $20 per month, while PC Game Pass costs only $12 per month. Purchasing the base edition of Black Ops 6 costs $70, so subscribing would save you money depending on how long you intend on playing Black Ops 6 and if you would use the service to play any other games. However, if you ever unsubscribed from Game Pass, then you would lose access to the game as well.

Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox has been a writer at Digital Trends for over four years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…
Black Ops 6 devs explain the movement system changes
Call of Duty Black Ops 6.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is arguably one of the most popular games on the internet at the moment. After all, when has a CoD game not been popular? The game has generated a decent amount of controversy surrounding its new Omnimovement system, and one of the developers has weighed in to explain.

The decision to swap to a different movement style all started with fluidity, according to Yale Miller, Matt Scronce, and VGC. Where Modern Warefare 2 was a much slower experience, Black Ops 6 feels faster, more frenetic, and most importantly, much more fluid. Miller said, "When we think about some of the favourite [entries], something that was there was that fluid feel. So that’s where we really started: what could we bring to that, and what rules could we break."

Read more
Game spending is up — and you can thank Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
A soldier shooting a beamshamsher in Black Ops 6.

Most of us knew that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 would be one of the biggest games of the year, but it's so big that it's doing a lot to boost games sales across the U.S.

This information comes from Circana (formerly NPD Group), which publishes a monthly report on U.S. video game spending. According to analyst Mat Piscatella, spending on hardware, software, and accessories was up 10% in October compared to the same time last year, and the spike was "primarily" driven by the release of Black Ops 6. Non-mobile video game subscription service spending was also up by 16%.

Read more
Xbox is finally letting you cloud stream games you own, with some limits
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty's new character. She's in a security uniform leaning against a railing with a fiery cityscape in the background.

Years after Xbox promised that users could stream games they own through the cloud, the company is finally launching that functionality, albeit with some restrictions.

Starting Wednesday, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will be able to use Xbox Cloud Gaming to stream games they already own, even if they're not in the Game Pass catalog. However, they can only stream from a list of 50 supported games right now. You can view the full list on Xbox's website, but it's a good mix of titles, ranging from AAA releases like Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Outlaws, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to recent indies like Animal Well, Fear the Spotlight, and Dredge. This applies to any version of the game you own, like if you have Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition.

Read more