Surprise New Xbox Game Pass Game Confirmed for July 24 (2024)

Xbox Game Pass is adding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on July 24, Microsoft has announced. This surprise release will mark the 12th new title to reach Xbox Game Pass in July 2024.

New arrivals on Microsoft's subscription service are typically mapped out once every two weeks. But the company breaks with that practice every once in a while by offering some surprise Xbox Game Pass releases. Such titles are sometimes announced with minimal notice and shadow-dropped at other times.

Modern Warfare 3 Coming to Xbox Game Pass, But It May Not Have Cloud Support

In yet another testament to that practice, Microsoft has just announced that Modern Warfare 3 will be making its way to Xbox Game Pass tomorrow, July 24. The 2023 Call of Duty installment will be available to both PC and console users across all non-Core tiers of the service. Microsoft's announcement contained no mention of Xbox Cloud Gaming support, thus mirroring its May 2024 confirmation of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 being a day-one Xbox Game Pass release. Given the Call of Duty series' long-standing multiplayer focus and the fact that competitive shooters still aren't a great fit for streaming services, it's possible that the 2023 FPS will skip Xbox Cloud Gaming for the time being.

Modern Warfare 3 is poised to become the first Call of Duty entry to make its way to Microsoft's subscription catalog, and only the second XGP release resulting from the company's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Since that deal was wrapped up in October 2023, Microsoft has only brought Diablo 4 to Xbox Game Pass. The company cited regulatory uncertainty surrounding the acquisition proposal as the primary reason for not starting the necessary legwork to bring more Activision Blizzard games to its service sooner.

At least one more Activision Blizzard title may make its way to the XGP catalog in between Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 6, the latter of which is scheduled to launch on October 25. Specifically, Spanish YouTuber eXtas1s recently reported that Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is coming to Xbox Game Pass sometime in August 2024. eXtas1s has an immensely solid track record with such scoops, having previously also leaked the Xbox Game Pass releases of Modern Warfare 3, Soul Hackers 2, Tchia, and Lords of the Fallen, among other titles.

Microsoft's subscription service has so far added 11 games since the turn of the month, the latest of which arrived in the form of Capcom's action-strategy hybrid Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess on July 19. Shortly after adding Modern Warfare 3, Xbox Game Pass will lose three other titles on July 31, when A Short Hike, Venba, and Train Sim World 4 are all scheduled to depart from its library.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the highest tier of Microsoft's flagship game subscription service that offers over 100 game titles that you can play with a single purchase, making it one of the most outstanding value propositions of the Xbox ecosystem to date.

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