‘Call of Duty’ boss Miles Leslie has said ‘Black Ops 6’s day-one release on Xbox Game Pass helped convince players who were “on the fence” about the series to give the latest shooter a try.
Call of Duty boss Miles Leslie has said Black Ops 6's day-one release on Xbox Game Pass helped convince players who were 'on the fence' to give the shooter a try
After completing its acquisition of publisher Activision Blizzard last year for nearly $69 billion, Microsoft announced it would be bringing future ‘Call of Duty’ titles to the subscription service Xbox Game Pass on the first day of release, and now Leslie - the associate creative director for the franchise at developer Treyarch - has said this decision has given the studio “another avenue to really get the game in the hands of players”.
Speaking with the BBC, he said: “What we've seen is it's allowed people that might have been on the fence, might have had some of that friction, might have been like, 'I haven't played in a while' to actually come back and try the game.”
After it's release last month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the title had been the “biggest ‘Call of Duty’ release ever”, and revealed its launch has set a record for “Game Pass subscriber adds on launch day”.
However, Leslie - who has worked on the ‘Call of Duty’ series since 2008’s ‘World at War’ - emphasised it was up to the developers to continue adding exciting content updates to keep fans happy and engaged.
He explained: “The key is, are they having fun? Where are the friction points? And that's what we're analysing.
“You never know until it's in the hands of millions of players how it's going to be received. It's come out and it's been really positive.
“Obviously there's things that we can improve and we've got our finger on the pulse of the community so that we can hear those things and analyse them and really attack and fix them in the right ways.”