Call of Duty: Vanguard joins Game Pass on June 17
Vanguard landed on Game Pass on June 17 for Ultimate, Premium, and PC subscribers, giving COD fans a cheap way to revisit its Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies.
Game Pass subscribers got another Call of Duty entry to play without buying it outright, and this one was a full premium release. Call of Duty: Vanguard joined Game Pass on June 17 for Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass, with access across Cloud, Console, and PC.
For anyone who skipped the 2021 launch, that matters right away. Vanguard is not a throwaway side mode or a seasonal add-on, but a standalone Call of Duty package with Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies. Activision built it as a World War II shooter, with battles set across the Eastern and Western Fronts of Europe, the Pacific, and North Africa, so it gives players a self-contained historical run instead of another live-service chase for skins and rotations.
That makes Vanguard one of the cleaner “try it now” additions in Microsoft’s Call of Duty rollout. The game originally launched on November 5, 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and Activision described it as the 18th installment in the series. If you want to see how Sledgehammer Games handled the franchise’s gunfeel, map pacing, or World War II campaign structure, this is a straightforward way to do it from the subscription catalog.
The timing also fits a pattern Microsoft has been building for more than a year. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III hit Game Pass on July 24, 2024. Black Ops 6 arrived on October 25, 2024. Modern Warfare II followed on April 15, 2025, and Call of Duty: WWII landed in June 2025. Vanguard now joins that line, reinforcing the idea that Microsoft is folding older premium Call of Duty entries into Game Pass after their main sales window closes.
That is the bigger signal here. Microsoft said in October 2024 that it would keep adding more Activision and Blizzard games to Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming over time, and Vanguard fits that strategy neatly. It does not change the current live rotation in Black Ops 7 or Warzone, but it does keep Call of Duty front and center in the Xbox ecosystem. For players waiting to sample an older premium entry without paying full price, June 17 was the date Vanguard came back into reach.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
