As the dust finally settles on the Xbox and Activision deal, a few more details have come to light about Ubisoft’s role in the deal, revealing that – whenever Call of Duty games come to its own Ubisoft+ service, they’ll include all the DLC too.
To get the merger past the UK’s CMA, Microsoft agreed to grant Ubisoft the perpetual cloud streaming rights “for Call of Duty and all other current Activision Blizzard games and those released over the next 15 years once Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is complete.” And now, Ubisoft’s head of strategic partnerships and business development Chris Early has revealed what this actually means: “Taking on these rights allows Ubisoft to bring Activision Blizzard games like Call of Duty to Ubisoft+, as well as license the streaming access of these games to cloud gaming companies, service providers and console makers – meaning we’re helping expand access for more players across streaming services.”
He continued “There was a a bit of discussion what rights would be available, and once that was clear it was easy to see how that would allow us to add Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft+ and bring even more value to our offering. It’s also content that might be new or different for our player base, so it allows a broader range of choice. We’re already working with partners around the world to distribute Ubisoft+ and our slate of games, so adding Activision Blizzard games to that is easier than starting from scratch somewhere and building a completely new service.”
Early also revealed the following information when asked which games are included in the deal. “The deal includes all the games that Activision Blizzard will release over the next 15 years. That includes the Call of Duty franchise and a whole lot more. Yes, it does include all the DLC including in-game content and downloadable DLC packs, expansions and add-ons.” While Call of Duty has, in recent years, made most of its DLC as ‘free’ releases over post-launch seasons, it’s surely welcome news to those who might want to complete their collection of older Call of Duty games and want to ensure they have the additional content too.
There is, however, no exact timeframe for when the games may appear on the Ubisoft+ service just yet. When asked, Early responded “We know players are excited for more games to come to Ubisoft+, and we will take the time we need to make sure that the back end fully supports the experience we want players to have. Now that the deal is closed, the operational element can begin to kick off”. So hopefully, fans won’t be waiting too long to find out.
In the meantime, the Modern Warfare 3 beta is currently underway, you can check out our MW3 beta impressions right here. Alternatively, you can check out the MW3 beta rewards or our guide to the best CPU for MW3 and MW2 – top picks for Call of Duty 2023 here.
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