Update: According to The Best War Games's sources, this rumor about the Call of Duty battle pass is not true.
The Call of Duty franchise's core formula has evolved quite a lot over the years, with this playing a large part in how the series has remained so consistently popular. Away from the singleplayer offerings of a given CoD title, the franchise's core multiplayer has faced many of these sweeping changes, with Call of Duty leaning heavily into the increasingly popular model of live service content in recent years.
This live service approach now defines the modern post-launch lifecycle of Call of Duty, with in-game seasons bringing waves of content through new maps, weapons, perks, limited-time modes, and much more. Of course, these seasons are also defined by their own battle passes, with CoD now offering a range of rewards through varied tiers of freely available or paid-for battle pass variants. Rumors are starting to circulate regarding some changes that may come to CoD's battle pass system for its 2025 release, with players potentially being locked out of content that previously did not require battle pass ownership - something that will undoubtedly stir up a lot of controversy if it proves true.
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Call of Duty's Rumored Battle Pass Changes Could Cause a Surge of Negativity
The post-launch popularity of any modern Call of Duty title ebbs and flows alongside its in-game seasons, with the fresh content that these seasons bring needing to meet the demands and expectations of the playerbase. Battle passes are often a good reflection of how memorable a given season is, with Call of Duty already taking some bold approaches in terms of how players can engage with them.
While players can earn some in-game rewards for free by leveling up a season's battle pass, they will have to purchase the pass to enjoy the vast majority of its benefits, with CoD also featuring a BlackCell premium pass that acts as a step above the standard battle pass purchase option. These BlackCell passes offer eye-catching variants of the operator skins from a given season, with multiple purchase options for a single battle pass already being quite a contentious element of Call of Duty's modern monetization approach.
The standard battle pass for a Black Ops 6 season costs roughly $10, while the BlackCell version costs nearly $30 thanks to its tier skips and exclusive items.
The scrutiny that exists around CoD's battle pass system is only set to grow if recent rumors hold weight, with it being suggested that 2025's CoD entry may completely change what kind of content is locked behind a battle pass purchase. Supposedly, Activision is looking to incentivize players to purchase seasonal battle passes in 2025's Call of Duty project by locking certain limited-time modes behind premium battle passes, and the potential backlash that this may cause is obvious.
CoD's Rumored Battle Pass Changes Could Sour One of the Franchise's Best Forms of Post-Launch Content
Seasonal events and limited-time modes have been a defining part of Black Ops 6's post-launch multiplayer life, often offering an engaging level of themed variety away from the usual gameplay of the title, with these limited-time modes never being behind a form of paywall and being available to all players. It is further alleged that higher-valued operator skins and other content will move over to battle passes instead of Premium Event Passes, with it being unclear if this will increase the price of battle passes or create a new tier altogether.
This rumored move would essentially strong-arm players out of some of the most important post-launch multiplayer content that modern CoD titles possess, instead aggressively pushing them toward battle pass purchases. With it seeming increasingly likely that 2025's Call of Duty entry will have to directly contend with Battlefield 6, these rumored battle pass changes could prove to be a grave error on Activision's part, with the backlash that Pass-exclusive LTMs would cause likely being intense and inevitable. After all, it is hard to imagine players not being frustrated that they are locked out of content for a paid game if they do not pay an additional fee every few months, and the controversy would only grow worse if these modes provided increased XP gains, as pay-to-win accusations would be inevitable.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 91%
- Released
- October 25, 2024
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Suggestive Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Treyarch, Raven Software
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
- Engine
- IW 9.0
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- Yes - PlayStation, Xbox, PC
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- FPS
