Earlier this month, we dug up what appeared to be a listing for both Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered on the Windows Store.
While we're still not used to seeing third-party triple-A titles on Windows 10's inbuilt marketplace, the listing seemed to point towards a release in the coming weeks.
As of today, both Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered have been confirmed for a Windows Store release – but not without some shortcomings.
According to an official Activision support page, both games will be available for separate purchase through Microsoft's storefront. These will be entirely separate products from the Xbox One versions of the game and won't take advantage of the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative. This eliminates both cross-platform multiplayer and purchases between Windows 10 and Xbox One, requiring two separate purchases to play on both platforms.
While it's somewhat expected that Xbox One players and PC players should be separated, due to the accuracy gulf between controllers and mouse players, it's a little unexpected that Windows 10 Store players will be isolated from other PC versions of the game.
"Can I play Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered for Windows 10 on Windows Store with my friends that are playing on another PC platform?""No, you can only play these titles with other users of Windows 10 on Windows Store."
The FAQ also clarifies the following:
- Neither Modern Warfare Remastered or Infinite Warfare are "Play Anywhere"
- It won't feature any form of cross-play between console and PC
- It won't feature any form of cross-play between Windows Store UWP and other PC versions
- You will need a Microsoft Account to play the game through the Windows Store
- You don't need Xbox Live Gold to play online
- You can play the campaign offline
Games like the upcoming GWENT: A Witcher Card Game support cross-play between the Windows 10 Store, Win32 versions, and Xbox One, so it seems unlikely that there are any hard restrictions in place which have dictated this scenario.
Going by the existing Windows 10 Store listings, we can expect both titles to launch alongside other platforms on November 4, 2016.
Update #1: A source familiar to the matter recently informed us that the decision to segregate Windows 10 Store and Win32 PC platform players is entirely on Activision. There is nothing about the UWP toolset that prevents cross-play functionality, as seen with CD Projekt RED's upcoming GWENT card game.
Update #2: We now have an official comment from a Microsoft spokesperson which reads as follows.
"We support cross-play between devices and platforms for partners who want to enable it."
We can only hope that Activision will reverse this strange decision, and can only speculate as to why they decided to handle the Win32 and UWP PC versions of the game this way.
