What will happen to COD Mobile after the Microsoft Activision Blizzard acquisition?
Will Activision Blizzard mobile games survive alongside Xbox Cloud Gaming?
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Following the announcement that Microsoft are buying out Activision Blizzard for close to a whopping $70 billion, people are wondering what it means for the future of their favorite ATVI games.
The acquisition means that Xbox will own the likes of Call of Duty, Overwatch and Diablo, and – like with the Bethesda takeover before it – these franchises could be added to Xbox Game Pass once the deal is complete. However, with Xbox Cloud Gaming on the rise going into 2022, what will this mean for the mobile games acquired in the buyout?
How could COD Mobile’s future be affected by Xbox Cloud Gaming?
The biggest curiosity with all this is Call of Duty Mobile, the franchise’s multiplayer mobile game. If previous and future COD titles are to be released to Xbox Game Pass once the acquisition is complete, they could be playable on Xbox Cloud Gaming and, therefore, compatible mobile devices. So will Call Of Duty Mobile still have a place in the mobile gaming world when this happens? And where does COD Warzone fit into this?
At the moment, it’s hard to tell what will happen, especially since the deal won’t be complete for at least another 18 months. What we can do, though, is take a look at other similar games and even the Bethesda takeover to decipher what might change, if anything.
Firstly, a look at the current roster of games available on Cloud Gaming reveals very few online multiplayers. Fallout 76, Among Us, Lemnis Gate and a few more are playable on Cloud Gaming. However, only the Halo Infinite Campaign is available to play on mobile devices at the moment, while the Multiplayer is not. This could mean that COD Warzone would not be made available on Cloud Gaming, and that COD Mobile would keep its rightful place as Call of Duty’s mobile Battle Royale entity. While this doesn’t take into account the multiplayer modes in other COD titles, we know that they offer different gameplay styles, and COD Mobile and Warzone are the most likely competitors.
And let’s not forget that Call of Duty Mobile is an entirely separate money spinner for the company. Going into Season 1 of 2022, the mobile game is still immensely popular, and with both a free and paid-for Battle Pass tracks – as well as other microtransactions – the game will definitely be a good earner for its new parent company. It could be a sensible decision to simply leave COD Multiplayer as is, with Mobile on mobiles, and Warzone on PC and console, even if the mainline COD titles and their respective Multiplayer modes do wind up on the Game Pass and the Cloud.
What about King mobile games?
With mobile gaming monarch King also coming under the Activision Blizzard umbrella, Microsoft has acquired even more mobile games. Aside from Crash Bandicoot – which is a whole other story given Sony’s involvement – King’s games are pretty much unique titles, and won’t have any direct competitors on the Xbox Cloud.
This puts into simpler terms what we’re saying above — really it comes down to how many different versions of the same game someone is willing to pay for. Will gamers still play COD Mobile if COD Warzone and others are available on the Cloud? We’ll leave that for Microsoft to decide.
