Xbox Game Pass could get Call of Duty a lot sooner than October – this month, in fact

Hot on the heels of some major pricing changes, it looks like Xbox could soon attempt to justify the hikes with a big addition to its streaming service. 

Ever sincethe competition of its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, people have been wondering when the first big Call of Duty game would hit Xbox's service. Now, it would seem the latest, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, will be the first.

A report from Insider Gaming has claimed that the game will hit Xbox Game Pass at some point this month (July) – and Windows Central has now vouched for the claim. 

This would be a major addition to Xbox Game Pass, although it'll also come only a few months before the next COD arrives in its own right. It's already been confirmed that Black Ops 6 will arrive on the service on its release date. 

That announcement was complicated enough when it was made, and there's no information yet as to whether the Game Pass tier changes will make it any different. It would see Game Pass for Console (a tier which won't exist soon) and Core customers only getting access to the game's campaign, with multiplayer and Zombies locked behind either PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate. 

That's a problem for another day, though – with Modern Warfare 3 seemingly imminent, it'll presumably be a simpler one to access given that it's already been out for a good number of months. 

The remaining question hanging over the COD franchise though, is when Microsoft will leverage its massive back-catalogue to bring classic titles to Xbox Game Pass. There are probably hesitations around the risk of cannibalising newer titles' money-making, but fans are still clamouring to be able to hop on older games like World at War and Black Ops to run around their favourite old maps. 

Regardless of when or if those older titles do appear, it's an interesting footnote that every addition to Game Pass will now require some real explanation attached to confirm which tiers it'll be on and which parts will be accessible.

While the subscription remains a great deal for some people, it's getting more complicated than ever to parse.