A new rumor suggests Microsoft could pull Call of Duty from Xbox Game Pass later this year. The twist: the chatter isn’t centered on the usual “Game Pass is cannibalizing sales” argument—it's about Call of Duty potentially warping Game Pass’ own business math so badly that it undermines the service’s model from the inside.
The claim comes from Jez Corden on The Xbox Two Podcast, where he said removing Call of Duty from Game Pass in 2026 is “a possibility” based on what he’s heard. If it happens, it would be one of the most dramatic pivots yet in Microsoft’s increasingly complicated relationship with its biggest subscription lever.
What’s Being Rumored — and Who’s Saying It
On The Xbox Two Podcast, Jez Corden was asked whether Game Pass is still Xbox’s priority as Microsoft gears up for “Helix.” In response, he floated a scenario that instantly set off alarm bells across the Xbox community:
“Maybe. I mean, it’ll be interesting to see like if Call of Duty if they take Call of Duty out of Game Pass this year, which is a possibility from what I’ve heard.”
That’s the core of the rumor: Call of Duty could be removed from Game Pass in 2026. There’s no official confirmation from Microsoft or Activision, and no specifics were offered about which Call of Duty titles might be affected (mainline entries, back catalog, or everything).
But the reasoning attached to the rumor is what makes it genuinely fascinating—and, frankly, more plausible than the standard console-war talking points.
The Unexpected Logic: “Call of Duty Is Hurting Game Pass”
The popular narrative has been simple: put a premium annual franchise into a subscription, and you risk training players not to buy it. That argument has been repeated so often it’s practically become background noise.
Corden’s framing is different. He pointed to recent financial context and suggested that Call of Duty’s sheer scale may be distorting how Game Pass performance is perceived and credited internally.
Here’s the gist of the claim as described: Call of Duty generates so much money that it takes the lion’s share of the credit for Game Pass revenue, reflected in how many hours subscribers play it and how much added content they buy. The consequence is that other games on the service don’t get “credit” for Game Pass revenue in the same way.
In other words, the issue isn’t necessarily that Game Pass is hurting Call of Duty. It’s that Call of Duty might be hurting Game Pass—by dominating engagement and monetization so completely that it undermines the subscription’s broader value proposition and business model.
That’s a subtle but important distinction. If Microsoft’s internal metrics and performance narratives are being swallowed whole by one mega-franchise, it becomes harder to justify the rest of the catalog, harder to evaluate what’s working, and harder to sell the “discover your next favorite game” promise when the reality is “everyone’s just playing CoD.”
And yes—if that’s the internal fear, removing Call of Duty from Game Pass (or changing how it’s included) becomes less of a retreat and more of a recalibration.
Game Pass Context: Price Hikes, Tiering, and the CoD “Ultimate” Reality
This rumor lands in a moment where Microsoft’s Game Pass strategy has already been under scrutiny. Over the last year, Microsoft has made notable changes to the service, including raising prices and restricting Call of Duty (and day-one access to first-party titles) to Game Pass Ultimate, rather than making it broadly available across all tiers.
That matters because it shows Microsoft is already willing to treat Call of Duty as a premium lever inside the subscription ecosystem. If you’ve already moved the franchise behind the highest tier, the next steps on the chessboard aren’t hard to imagine: tighter windows, rotating access, “select titles only,” or—yes—removal.
GamingBolt also frames the potential move as part of a broader effort to “maximize the IP,” suggesting that pulling it from Game Pass could be seen as the next escalation in monetizing the franchise more directly.
What’s missing, though—and it’s a big missing piece—is hard data. Even GamingBolt notes that we don’t know the impact of Game Pass on Call of Duty sales in 2025, nor whether price increases mitigated any potential losses. That uncertainty is exactly why this rumor is so combustible: everyone has a theory, but almost nobody has numbers.
Why This Would Be a Huge Deal (Even If You Don’t Play CoD)
If Microsoft removes Call of Duty from Game Pass, it’s not just “one game leaving a service.” It’s a philosophical shift.
Call of Duty has been positioned as one of the clearest “you should subscribe” arguments in modern Game Pass marketing logic—especially after Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition put the franchise under the Xbox umbrella. If the biggest franchise in the portfolio can’t comfortably live inside the subscription model, it raises uncomfortable questions:
- Is Game Pass best suited for some types of games, but not mega-service ecosystems like Call of Duty?
- Is Microsoft rethinking the role of subscriptions as the center of its gaming strategy?
- Are we heading toward a future where Game Pass is more about breadth and discovery, while the biggest live-service giants sit outside it?
There’s also a player-expectation problem. Once you train an audience that a franchise is “included,” taking it away is a trust and value shock—especially if the removal happens close to a new annual release cycle.
And then there’s the competitive angle. Call of Duty is a multi-platform behemoth. Corden also commented that gaming revenue was down in the last quarter “because of Call of Duty as a whole,” including on PlayStation—an important reminder that this franchise’s performance (good or bad) can ripple across the entire industry’s quarterly narratives.
What Remains Unknown
A rumor like this creates more questions than answers—and right now, the unanswered questions are the story:
- Which Call of Duty titles would be removed (if any): the newest entry, the full back catalog, or only certain games?
- Would removal apply to Game Pass Ultimate only, or would it affect all Game Pass tiers equally?
- Would Microsoft replace “day-one inclusion” with a timed window, a discount, or another perk?
- Is this tied to Microsoft’s next-gen planning and “Helix,” and if so, how?
- Has Microsoft or Activision made any internal or public commitments about Call of Duty’s long-term Game Pass presence? No official announcement has been made.
For now, the only concrete takeaway is that a well-connected Xbox voice is openly entertaining the possibility that Call of Duty could leave Game Pass in 2026—and the rationale being discussed isn’t the simplistic “subscription kills sales” line. It’s the more unsettling idea that Call of Duty is so massive it may be bending Game Pass around itself… and Microsoft might decide the service can’t afford that distortion anymore.
