At the moment, all major publishers are rushing into the early access concept to make even more money with pre-orders. Activision, of all companies, is now backing down
It’s actually absurd. Every year, publishers introduce new trends in gaming, only to advertise a few years later that they are abolishing those very trends. An Assassin’s Creed Mirage suddenly advertises a small open world, a Call of Duty WW2 did away with the whole wallrun thing in 2019 – and right now the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 can take the crown for finally not taking 30 euros more out of your pocket so you can start playing a few days earlier
The new Early Access marketing model has been sweeping the industry for months. You pay big money for the deluxe pre-order edition of a game, but you can get started a few days earlier – as was the case with Star Wars Outlaws and Space Marine 2, for example.
Recently, the open-world speedster Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crowncrashed into a brick wall after pre-orderers paid 80 euros for advance access, which was then unavailable due to server problems:
Black Ops 6 without any pre-release access
Now Call of Duty, of all people, dares to back down. In a message to our colleagues at CharlieIntel, the developer and publisher position themselves unequivocally:
BREAKING: Activision confirms there is no campaign early access for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Statement from Activision rep sent to us:
“The team is fully focused on October 25th. We are excited about all the game has to offer across Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies. This… pic.twitter.com/FlsiGwP9wA
– CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) September 9, 2024
The team is fully focused on October 25, 2024, and we’re very excited about everything the game offers across campaign, zombies, and multiplayer. This year we’ve decided that the entire community can get started in all modes at the same time, so we’re going back to a single big launch date of October 25th. That’s why there is no Early Access, just the countdown before release
This breaks a pattern that Call of Duty itself has been pushing for years. In the case of Modern Warfare 2 and 3, you could grab the expensive Vault Edition to get pre-release access to the campaign before multiplayer and zombies followed a week later.
For marketing reasons, this made sense on the one hand because it turned the launch into a week-long event (Warzone came out later), but on the other hand, the same strategy really bit MW3 in the ass last year: Because everyone only had access to the campaign in the first week, the spotlight shifted much more to its weaknesses -and there were plenty of those
Of course, whether the U-turn is related to this remains speculation for now. The decision may also be linked to the game’s Day 1 release in Microsoft’s Game Pass. Either way, at least you won’t be getting Call of Duty piecemeal this year, but as a complete package. Is this the right move? Let us know in the comments.
