Activision Blizzard, more accurately Activision Blizzard King, has published many games over the years, and thanks to mergers and acquisitions of its own, has numerous franchises that it owns. However, not all the games published by Activision are necessarily coming with the Microsoft deal. For example, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is not owned by Activision despite being published by the company, and so Microsoft won’t have control over that FromSoftware game.
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While this is not necessarily a fully comprehensive list, this seems to be at least most of the franchises and games that Xbox will own once its acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through. There could always be licensing issues and other problems that pop up and prevent the company from ever doing anything substantial with some of the games (like how a GoldenEye 007 remaster has never materialized despite Microsoft owning Rare), so fans should keep that in mind.
Activision
Blur Caesar Call of Duty Crash Bandicoot DJ Hero Empire Earth Gabriel Knight Geometry Wars Guitar Hero Gun Hexen Interstate ‘76 King’s Quest Laura Bow Mysteries Phantasmagoria Pitfall Police Quest Prototype Quest for Glory Singularity Skylanders Soldier of Fortune Space Quest Spyro the Dragon TimeShift Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater True Crime Zork
Obviously the crown jewel of the Activision contributions is the Call of Duty franchise, which remains an unstoppable juggernaut in the industry. Even when Call of Duty game sales are down, its annual releases still tend to be the highest-selling video games of the year. Case in point, Call of Duty: Vanguard was the best-selling game of 2021 despite it earning low review scores and reportedly selling much worse than its recent predecessors like 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and 2020’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
Xbox having control over the Call of Duty franchise is huge because it potentially gives the company significant leverage over PlayStation. Call of Duty is consistently the top-selling game year after year, and a significant chunk of those sales happen on PlayStation. Theoretically, Xbox could take the Call of Duty brand and make it Xbox exclusive moving forward, forcing CoD fans on PlayStation to buy an Xbox or PC or get left behind. Alternatively, Xbox could keep selling Call of Duty on competing platforms, like what it does with Minecraft, but give Xbox gamers extra perks like being able to play each new game through Game Pass instead of having to buy them outright.
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Getting control of the Call of Duty franchise is huge for Xbox, but there are other notable series it’s acquiring through the Activision acquisition. 3D platformers may not be the industry-leading games they once were, but they still earn acclaim and sell well, especially if they’re new entries in established franchises like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. It was looking like Activision was getting ready to hang up the Crash and Spyro franchises, but Microsoft could now revive them. Not only that, but it would be a serious flex to take characters that were once PlayStation mascots and make new Xbox exclusive games about them.
There may be some licensing issues to work out with the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games, but making those Xbox exclusive would also be huge for the brand and would have potential to seriously hurt PlayStation. But while Tony Hawk, Crash, Spyro, and Call of Duty are likely the biggest “gets” out of the Activision acquisition, when it comes to the Activision side of it anyway, Microsoft could also look into remastering or rebooting other titles like Prototype, Gun, or any of the Sierra franchises that Activision acquired when it merged with Vivendi.
On top of all these games, the Activision acquisition also gives Microsoft access to some of the bigger “fad” games of the past couple decades, namely music/rhythm game Guitar Hero and toys to life phenomenon Skylanders. While interest in both of those franchises has waned significantly in recent years, they can always make a comeback. In fact, a nostalgia-laden marketing push for Guitar Hero would likely be huge in today’s gaming climate.
Blizzard
Diablo Hearthstone Heroes of the Storm The Lost Vikings Overwatch StarCraft Warcraft
While the Activision wing may have more franchises under its belt, the Blizzard wing has taken a quality over quantity approach. Blizzard doesn’t release games regularly and doesn’t constantly pursue new IP, but what it does have are some of the most popular series of all time. And not only that, but some of Blizzard’s biggest franchises have new titles in active development that could now very well become Xbox exclusive depending on when the deal goes through.
Titles like Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 have been in development at Blizzard for years, and while they have faced some serious development setbacks, one has to imagine that they’re getting relatively close to release. There once was a time when fans expected to play both games this year, and while that seems highly unlikely, 2023 release dates for Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 don’t seem out of the question.
Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 being day one Xbox Game Pass games will be huge for Microsoft’s subscription service. Meanwhile, the Blizzard acquisition could go a long way in giving Microsoft a much bigger foothold in the PC gaming market. Games like StarCraft and Heroes of the Storm will now be Microsoft-owned, not to mention the incredibly popular MMORPG World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft is an especially interesting case. It’s possible that Microsoft will leave World of Warcraft’s current pricing model untouched, but it’s also possible that it will make the game available to play through PC Game Pass. This would potentially mean radical changes for the MMORPG, though fans will have to stay tuned to see what happens.
King
Candy Crush Saga
Mobile game developer King is also part of Activision Blizzard, and while it seems to be getting overlooked compared to other aspects of the deal, one shouldn’t underestimate it. Just as acquiring Blizzard could help Microsoft increase its foothold in the PC gaming space, acquiring King could give the company a massive push into the mobile games market.
King’s main product is Candy Crush Saga, a puzzle game that it has since spun-off into countless other games with the word “Saga” attached to them. Candy Crush Saga is huge in the mobile gaming world, and so Microsoft acquiring King is one of the more notable aspects of the acquisition.
Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard’s studios and their franchises is one thing, but it’s another matter entirely if it’s able to capitalize on this IP and do something special with it. Microsoft has a mixed track record when it comes to this, doing little to take advantage of Rare’s franchises while in more recent years doing a relatively great job of supporting the studios it’s acquired and helping them produce high quality games. Xbox fans and fans of these franchises will just have to wait and see what happens.
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