It seems telling that Microsoft and Activision haven’t been touting sales numbers for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, a sequel that hasn’t been as well-received by players as Black Ops 6 was a year earlier. Regardless, Microsoft has announced that the Call of Duty franchise led the charge on Xbox Game Pass in 2025 in two key categories.
On social media, the official account for Xbox Game Pass noted that Call of Duty ranked first for total players and hours in 2025. Specific figures beyond that weren’t included in the announcement.
In addition to #1 in November, @CallofDuty closed out 2025 as the #1 franchise on Xbox Game Pass for total players and hours all year 🫡
Here’s to @CallofDuty & its worldwide community. Season 1 of #BlackOps7 + Call of Duty: Warzone is just getting warmed up.— Xbox Game Pass (@XboxGamePass) December 10, 2025
The timing is interesting because Activision released a statement of its own earlier this week which acknowledged that Black Ops 7 fell short of the mark the publisher set for itself. Furthermore, Activision pledged to refrain from any future CoD year-to-year releases that are direct sequels, as Black Ops 6 and 7 were.
“[We know] that for some of you, the franchise has not met your expectations fully,” reads the statement. “To be very clear, we know what you expect and rest assured we will deliver, and overdeliver, on those expectations as we move forward … We will no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops games. The reasons are many, but the main one is to ensure we provide an absolutely unique experience each and every year. We will drive innovation that is meaningful, not incremental. While we aren’t sharing those plans today, we look forward to doing so when the time is right.”
Despite the mixed message that comes from the close arrival of these statements, it’s entirely plausible that Call of Duty was No. 1 on Game Pass despite under-performing in other metrics. At least one video game analyst chastised Microsoft for “dropping the ball” and blamed Black Ops 7’s disappointing performance on burnout, poor creative decisions, and its use of AI slop.
The real question now is whether EA’s Battlefield 6 will outperform Black Ops 7 in sales. As of early November, Battlefield 6 sold 10 million copies across all platforms. It remains to be seen if that will be enough to unseat Call of Duty as the top-selling franchise of the year. Call of Duty hasn’t been beaten in that category by another shooter since 2006.