Is $70 Call of Duty a tougher sell without Game Pass? Modern Warfare 4 player counts are down
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Modern Warfare 4 screenshot. | Credit: Cole Martin for Windows Central, Activision
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is out, and honestly, it looks like the first truly good Call of Duty campaign in a decade. That's impressive in itself, but the data tells a slightly more worrying story.
According to figures obtained via TrueAchievements and SteamDB, Modern Warfare 4 is reportedly down 32% from last year's Black Ops 7 on Xbox. The game has also fallen short in player counts when compared to titles like Halo: Campaign Evolved , Gears of War: E-Day , and Forza Horizon 6 , again on Xbox. Since all of those games were available on Game Pass , it makes sense why the numbers look the way they do.
What makes this even more interesting is that the situation doesn't appear to be much better over on Steam.
Steam numbers show a significant dip
Call of Duty Steam Charts | Credit: SteamDB | charlieINTEL
According to SteamDB , Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has peaked at around 215,000 concurrent players so far. That's not terrible by any means, but it falls considerably short of previous releases.
For comparison, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 reached a peak of 306,460 concurrent playerson Steam during its launch weekend in October 2024, despite also releasing on Game Pass. That means Modern Warfare 4 has seen roughly 30% fewer concurrent players so far on Steam.
I should mention that these figures are for Call of Duty HQ, which includes multiple Call of Duty games, as well as Warzone and DMZ.
Of course, there are several things to consider here. Modern Warfare 4 isn't available on Game Pass , meaning players who previously relied on the service for access now have to purchase the game outright. Naturally, that makes jumping into the latest Call of Duty considerably more expensive. Given the times we live in, you can't blame people for not throwing down $70.
That said, lower player counts don't necessarily translate into poor sales; the game was the number one best seller on Steam when it released. But without official figures from Activision, it's difficult to determine just how successful Modern Warfare 4 has been.
We do have one figure to go by, though. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma recently took to X to reveal that the Call of Duty franchise as a whole has passed $40 billion in revenue. That means the franchise has achieved $10 billion in revenue since 2022, when it was last reported at $30 billion.
With all that said, let me know your thoughts. Are people feeling fatigued by the yearly Call of Duty release cycle, or is it just that other games are out and Call of Duty isn't quite worth the $70 on release, especially with a Game Pass release expected a year later?
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