Modern Warfare III and Diablo IV won't come to Game Pass until 2024

Game Pass subscribers will have to wait a bit more before they're able to play Diablo IV and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III on the service. Activision Blizzard has announced on X, formerly Twitter, that it doesn't have plans to add those games — among other upcoming and recent releases — to the service anytime this year. Based on its explanation, it's waiting for Microsoft's acquisition of the company to be finalized, which is expected to happen within this month.

"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," the gaming giant wrote. It added that it expects to start working with Xbox and add its titles to the Game Pass service once the deal closes, and that the process would begin "sometime in the course of next year."

Microsoft first announced that it was buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in early 2022 and that it was hoping to close the deal by June 2023. However, several regulators moved to block the purchase over concerns that it would harm competition and stifle innovation. The European Commission rubberstamped the acquisition in May with the condition that Microsoft offers its games on other cloud gaming services. Meanwhile, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority blocked the deal until the companies promised to sell "cloud streaming rights for all current and new Activision Blizzard PC and console games released over the next 15 years to Ubisoft Entertainment... in perpetuity." In the US, courts denied the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) request to issue an injunction on the purchase. However, the FTC announced in September that it plans to restart its in-house trial against the acquisition.