Activision Says Don’t Expect Its Games On Xbox Game Pass Until Next Year

Even if Microsoft and Activision Blizzard close their near $69 billion deal as expected later this month, expect a delay before any of Activision’s biggest games, old or new, join Xbox’s popular subscription service.

With the deadline for closing the Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft merger on the horizon, the Call of Duty and Diablo publisher cleared the air about how the deal will impact Game Pass subscriptions.

“While we do not have plans to put Modern Warfare III or Diablo IV into Game Pass this year, once the deal closes, we expect to start working with Xbox to bring our titles to more players around the world,” the company said in a tweet Monday. “And we anticipate that we would begin adding games into Game Pass sometime in the course of next year.”

The company said that it received questions about these games coming to Game Pass, and likely wanted to get ahead of Game Pass subscribers waiting for these new releases to come to the service for free. Activision Blizzard is sitting on a treasure trove of classic gaming IP, such as the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series and Spyro The Dragon, as well as modern day hits like the annual Call of Duty series.

Either way, Microsoft is likely eager to get these games on the service. In July, the company fixed servers for older Call of Duty titles like the original Modern Warfare 2, to a tremendous reception.

As for Activision Blizzard’s merger with Microsoft, the deal is closer than ever. After months of uncertainty following opposition from both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority, Microsoft managed to defeat U.S. regulators in federal court, and restructured the deal to successfully address the UK’s concerns over a potential monopoly in the developing cloud gaming space.

The deadline for the deal is set for Oct. 18