Diablo 4 Xbox Game Pass Update Provided by Activision Blizzard

The deal between Microsoft and Activision hasn't closed yet, but every sign points to it happening sometime soon. To that end, many players have been wondering about what this means for Activision's biggest games and Xbox Game Pass. After all, it would be odd for Microsoft to make such a gigantic purchase and then not use games like Diablo 4 to attract new users to its subscription service. Unfortunately for players hoping to hear good news about Diablo 4 coming to Game Pass in the the short term, Activision announced today that it will likely be a bit before we see its newest games on the service.

In a tweet, Activision Blizzard announced, "We do not have plans to put Modern Warfare 3 or Diablo 4 into Game Pass this year, once the deal closes, we expect to start working with Xbox to bring out titles to more players around the world. And we anticipate that we would begin adding games into Game Pass sometime in the course of next year."

It’s awesome to see anticipation building for Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® III. As we continue to work toward regulatory approval of the Microsoft deal, we’ve been getting some questions whether our upcoming and recently launched games will be available via Game Pass.

While we…

— Activision Blizzard (@ATVI_AB) October 9, 2023

To some degree, this announcement should be expected. After all, Activision and Microsoft can only really be talking about potential Game Pass additions in theory until the deal actually goes through. Instead, they'd need to wait until everything is cleared by regulators. Especially for Modern Warfare 3, Activision already has deals in place with PlayStation, so they couldn't take the game onto Game Pass immediately anyway.

That said, it does seem likely from this announcement that we'll see games like MW3 and Diablo 4 on Game Pass at some point next year. It's not clear if every new Activision game will immediately come to Game Pass once the deal goes through, but that does seem likely. Again, a company like Microsoft doesn't buy a major publisher and then does not use its library to boost the value of Game Pass. We've already seen it happen with Bethesda, and while future Call of Duty games might not be Xbox-exclusive, they will almost certainly come to Game Pass.

When Will Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Purchase Go Through

Late last week, an anonymous source told The Verge that Microsoft is planning to finalize its acquisition of Activision Blizzard sometime this week. In fact, The Verge claimed that it's hearing Friday, October 13 as the proposed closing date. If that turns out to be true, then it makes sense why Activision would make this announcement somewhat out of the blue. If it knows the closing date is coming later this week, it probably wants to get out ahead of any fan speculation that will likely start popping up around that announcement. Either way, it's clear that fans shouldn't expect to see Modern Warfare 3 or Diablo 4 on Game Pass until at least next year.

Diablo 4 is available now on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms. The game's second season is kicking off on October 17, bringing vampiric powers to the playerbase.