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

By Jesse Lennox October 28, 2024

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.

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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 has been a writer at Digital Trends for over four years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…

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All Call of Duty games in order, by release date and chronologically

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Call of Duty is one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. The original Call of Duty set a new standard for first-person shooters, the series' online multiplayer work has been a must-play for gamers for nearly two decades, and Warzone has been one of the top battle royale experiences of late.

The series has covered a lot of warfare, from World War II to futuristic fictional wars in 2187, but never in any set order. Players have been bounced around from era to era with each annual COD release and even revisited the same conflicts multiple times from different perspectives through direct sequels and remakes.

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You might want to wait a bit to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Steam

A player runs in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 multiplayer.

It's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launch day, which means potentially millions of players are hopping into the new single-player campaign, the updated multiplayer mode, and Zombies. While posts online about the performance of the game seem to be minimal, there have been reported issues on PC, specifically via Steam.

It's been a common story lately about players being mad at third-party launchers on Steam, and that remains the case for Black Ops 6. Call of Duty's is called Call of Duty HQ (COD HQ), and it's a hub for players to manage their game installs, whether they want to only download certain game modes or launch a specific game. It seems as if players can only switch between modes through the launcher and have to go through multiple menus to boot the game up. In the worst cases, they can't launch the game at all.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6: tips and tricks to dominate the competition

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

In most Call of Duty games, you can rely on your aim and reflexes to get you pretty far in multiplayer, but Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will ask a lot more of you if you want to outplay the competition. Getting the feel for new weapons won't take you long, but there's a lot more you need to wrap your head around in this entry, from the completely revamped movement systems and perks to new game modes and scorestreaks.

Black Ops 6 proves that we're long past the days of this series being a simple shooter. While the campaign is great fun for a while, and Zombies has a lot to sink your teeth into as well, it is the competitive multiplayer mode that most of us spend the most time with. This is the biggest Call of Duty has been in years, so the competition has never been fiercer. If you want that edge on the battlefield, these tips and tricks will give it to you.
Master the movement