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Activision admits players are fatigued with futuristic Call of Duty games

By Gabe Gurwin September 5, 2017

Official Call of Duty®: WWII Headquarters Reveal Trailer [UK]

The Call of Duty franchise had been moving further and further into the future over the last few years, with varying degrees of success. While 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare included some great innovations to mobility and a fun, straightforward story, the next few installments began to veer off the rails. After the poor public reception — and lower sales numbers — for

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in 2016, Activision knew it had to go back to its roots with Call of Duty: WWII.

Speaking to Game Informer, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg revealed that the company likely wouldn’t have released another futuristic shooter if it had anticipated fans’ reaction to it.

“First of all, there was a time not too long ago when everybody in the Call of Duty community was fatigued with modern [shooters] and was asking for innovation and asking for new experiences, and that’s what led us to start experimenting with taking the franchise into the future in the first place,” Hirshberg said. “I think with the benefit of hindsight, we can all agree we might have had one more future game than we needed.”

Hirshberg also said that the team at Sledgehammer originally wanted to begin work on an Advanced Warfare sequel, but it “felt natural” to task them with bringing the franchise back to its original World War II setting. He also seems less than confident about the prospects of an Advanced Warfare 2 actually seeing the light of day. The return to 1940s combat doesn’t sound like it will be a one-and-done deal, however. With World at War exploring the Pacific conflict and Black Ops even examining what happened after the war, Activision could give a newer, more modern spin on World War II without retreading ground. We’re still holding out for that Revolutionary War game, though.

Call of Duty: World War II focuses entirely on the fight against the Nazis, and its campaign includes Hollywood talent like Josh Duhamel, Ving Rhames, and David Tennant. The game will also include a competitive multiplayer mode, as well as a zombie mode with a renewed emphasis on horror. It’s out on November 3 for

Xbox One

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

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All Call of Duty games in order, by release date and chronologically

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Call of Duty is one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. The original Call of Duty set a new standard for first-person shooters, the series' online multiplayer work has been a must-play for gamers for nearly two decades, and Warzone has been one of the top battle royale experiences of late.

The series has covered a lot of warfare, from World War II to futuristic fictional wars in 2187, but never in any set order. Players have been bounced around from era to era with each annual COD release and even revisited the same conflicts multiple times from different perspectives through direct sequels and remakes.

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Is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass?

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When Microsoft announced that it was acquiring Activision, the big question on everyone's mind was what would happen with Call of Duty. Well, it took months of legal battles, but the deal finally went through and the first CoD game to release officially under Microsoft is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Xbox has held firm to its commitment to put all of its first-party titles onto Game Pass on day one for all its subscribers, but is it honoring that deal for the biggest game of the year? We know it isn't an Xbox exclusive and is still cross-platform, after all. If you have an Xbox and a subscription to Game Pass, you might not need to spend any money on Black Ops 6, but only if you meet one specific requirement.
Is Black Ops 6 on Game Pass?

The short answer is yes, Black Ops 6 is on Game Pass, but not at every tier. Prior to Black Ops 6 launching, Xbox restructured its Game Pass tiers a bit with new pricing and benefits. What you need to know is that you now need to either be a PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate subscriber to get access to any first-party day-one titles.

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You might want to wait a bit to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Steam

A player runs in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 multiplayer.

It's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launch day, which means potentially millions of players are hopping into the new single-player campaign, the updated multiplayer mode, and Zombies. While posts online about the performance of the game seem to be minimal, there have been reported issues on PC, specifically via Steam.

It's been a common story lately about players being mad at third-party launchers on Steam, and that remains the case for Black Ops 6. Call of Duty's is called Call of Duty HQ (COD HQ), and it's a hub for players to manage their game installs, whether they want to only download certain game modes or launch a specific game. It seems as if players can only switch between modes through the launcher and have to go through multiple menus to boot the game up. In the worst cases, they can't launch the game at all.