Is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on Xbox Game Pass?

Not at launch. Xbox’s own notice says Game Pass availability starts Holiday 2027, and players who want it on day one must buy it.

How much does Xbox Game Pass cost now?

In the US, Ultimate is $23 a month, Premium $15, Essential $10 and PC Game Pass $14. Local prices differ by region.

When does Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade join Game Pass?

October 29, 2026, on Series X|S, PC and cloud, for the Ultimate, PC and Premium tiers.

Will Game Pass let me choose my own features?

It’s reported, not confirmed. According to Fortune, Xbox plans à la carte choices covering console-only games, cloud gaming and multiplayer, though how it will work remains unclear.

When does GTA 6 come out, and on which platforms?

November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with no PC release date announced.

Xbox Game Pass Shake-Up – Modern Warfare 4 Skips Day One as New Games Land

or two straight years, a Game Pass subscription meant one thing every autumn: the new Call of Duty, free on launch day. That run is over.

Game Pass is Microsoft’s Netflix-style subscription for video games. You pay monthly and get a rotating library you can play on Xbox consoles, Windows PCs and, on some tiers, streamed to phones and TVs. It has always been a numbers game, and Microsoft is now openly rewriting the math.

Call of Duty walks out the front door

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 went live worldwide on October 23, 2026. Subscribers who opened the Xbox app that week got a blunt message. The notification says Game Pass availability starts Holiday 2027, and anyone who wants to play on day one has to buy the game, with a button that opens the Microsoft Store.

That ends a short-lived tradition. Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 were both added to the subscription at launch, but the new title gets different treatment.

The trade was set back in April. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate dropped from US$29.99 to US$22.99 a month, and PC Game Pass fell from US$16.49 to US$13.99. In exchange, new Call of Duty games now arrive on Ultimate and PC Game Pass during the following holiday season, about a year later, while older entries stay in the library. The money explains a lot: Bloomberg had previously reported that putting new Call of Duty games on Game Pass cost Microsoft $300 million in lost sales.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launched on October 23 as a full-price release, with Game Pass access pushed to late 2027.Image credit: Activision / Xbox Wire

What subscribers actually get this month

The good news is that the library keeps moving. The second October wave runs from October 21 to November 3. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is the headline, and The Séance of Blake Manor, Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted, Terrible Lizards, Mouthwashing and Pit of Goblin also land across the Ultimate, PC and Premium tiers, depending on the game.

Something always leaves too. Nine games exit Game Pass in late October, including Deep Rock Galactic and #LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. If either is on your list, finish it now.

Indie studios keep the lights on

The ID@Xbox and IGN showcase added more to the calendar. Seven new Game Pass titles were announced, most of them arriving on day one: CROAK, Mouthwashing, No, I’m Not a Human, Drill Keeper, Mr Magpie’s Harmless Card Game, Red Kiss and Scramble Knights Online. Some arrive within days, while others are slated for 2027.

Mouthwashing deserves a flag for horror fans. It’s a first-person horror game about the dying crew of a shipwrecked space freighter, and it arrives October 29.

The wider Xbox store is busy too. More than 40 games release in the last week of October, including Croc 2 and The Wolf Among Us Remastered, plus free next-gen upgrades for the Metro Redux games.

The new Game Pass titles revealed during the ID@Xbox and IGN Showcase, several of them launching on day one.

The bigger shake is the menu itself

The biggest change hasn’t happened yet. Fortune profiled Xbox CEO Asha Sharma in October 2026 and reported that Xbox is planning a major Game Pass overhaul. Players would choose features à la carte, with add-ons for console-only games, cloud gaming and multiplayer, all still on a tiered structure.

For context, Sharma became CEO in February, and the division has since gone through layoffs, studio sales and changes to its core products. Her stance on price has been public from the start. When the April cut landed, she said Ultimate had become “too expensive for too many players.”

Here is what people pay today. Ultimate costs $23 a month for 500+ games, day-one releases, bundled Fortnite Crew, EA Play and Ubisoft+ Classics, and online multiplayer. Premium is $15, Essential is $10, and PC Game Pass is $14. Prices vary by country.

Opinions split on whether the change would help. A build-your-own plan could let someone drop extras they never use and pay less. It could also turn one simple subscription into a checklist of add-ons. Engadget noted the change could make the service more appealing and affordable, but questioned whether it can turn around the company’s fortunes on its own. Hardware is part of the same story: reports suggest the next-gen Project Helix consoles could start at $1,800.

And then there’s November 19

All of this plays out in the shadow of the biggest launch on the calendar. Rockstar released the GTA 6 launch trailer on October 15, focusing on protagonists Jason and Lucia and on Vice City in the fictional state of Leonida. Grand Theft Auto VI launches November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and Rockstar hasn’t announced a PC date. Xbox’s own news channel was promoting that trailer the same day Modern Warfare 4 went live.

Grand Theft Auto VI arrives November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with no PC date announced yet.

Game Pass was sold as the end of buying games one at a time. A year from now it may come with a menu, a few add-ons and a waiting room for the biggest releases. The question every subscriber faces is no longer what’s in the library this month. It’s which pieces of it they’re willing to pay for.