Xbox has made so many missteps one after the other that its Game Pass price cut in April already feels like a lifetime ago. It was able to cut the price by dropping the next Call of Duty from the service, at least on day one, and the new Modern Warfare 4 ad really wants to make sure you know that.

"Not On Xbox Game Pass This Year"

The ad for Modern Warfare 4 was allegedly spotted by ResetEra user CloseTalker on Facebook, and it has quickly gone viral for how proudly it states that the next Call of Duty won't be coming to Game Pass day one. "Not on Xbox Game Pass this year," the message reads in letters so big and bold that they occupy more ad space than the name of the game.

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The ad has not been 100 percent confirmed to be real, although it speaks volumes about the current state of Xbox that most people have seen it and immediately assumed that it would do something like this. Giving this much ad real estate to a significant downside regarding the next installment in, whether you like it or not, the biggest series under the Xbox banner.

Is This Good Guy Xbox Or Silly Goose Xbox?

If the ad is real, there's an argument to be made that this is Xbox being the good guys. Hide a message like this away in the small print, and the company gets accused of trying to trick casual CoD fans into subscribing, or remaining subscribed, to Game Pass, unaware that Modern Warfare 4 won't be added to the service until a year after its release.

I would be yelling that take right about now if I hadn't witnessed years of Xbox's unclear messaging surrounding Game Pass. Even at a higher price, Game Pass is an incredible deal. It is the Netflix of video games, and it should be far more successful than it is today. One of the leading reasons it isn't is because Xbox hasn't done enough to inform casual gamers of what it is, how you get it, and what it includes.

I have people in my life who own an Xbox and didn't know what Game Pass was, or that it even existed, until I explained it to them.

Now that Xbox has a negative about Game Pass to inform the world about, it wants to shout about it from the rooftops. The decision to ditch future Call of Duty releases from Game Pass day one so that the price could be dropped was a good idea. Making this the place where you finally give Game Pass real estate on your ads, not so much.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Like Follow Followed First-Person Shooter Action Systems Released October 23, 2026 Developer(s) Infinity Ward Publisher(s) Activision Multiplayer Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op Prequel(s) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022), Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III 18 Images Close
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Genre(s) First-Person Shooter, Action Powered by Expand Collapse