Call of Duty, Diablo, and Overwatch Confirmed for Game Pass, Call of Duty Staying on PlayStation

On the same day that the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority stated they are pushing an investigation into the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Xbox’s CEO Phil Spencer released a blog detailing their plans for the newly acquired games should the deal go through.

TL;DR:

• UK is investigating the current acquisition.
• Spencer confirms CoD, Diablo, and OW are coming to Game Pass.
• We are still unknown on WoW and its subscription.
• Call of Duty is confirmed to be staying on PlayStation.

In this blog post, Spencer outlines how they plan to bring all Activision Blizzard’s games to Game Pass once the deal is complete although only lists the games currently available for consoles on his example list.  We currently do not have any answers for how PC-only games (like World of Warcraft) will be handled or if their monthly subscriptions will be affected. 

Cross-play was also a major topic of this blog and Spencer confirmed that it will remain within the games and gamers will be able to enjoy the games with their friends no matter the platform.  He pushes Minecraft as an example of Xbox’s commitment toward cross-play and mentions that Call of Duty will continue to release on PlayStation with the same edition on release day.

The Blog does lack any information about Overwatch and Diablo continuing to launch on PlayStation, but it is worth noting that Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 are already planned to release on PlayStation for their releases. Of course, cloud gaming and mobile gaming are a strong focus of the blog as Xbox continues to push their cloud gaming and mobile platforms.