Black Ops 3 pulled from Xbox One

Bad news if you're planning on playing Call of Duty Black Ops 3 on Xbox One - the game has been removed from the digital store.

A few days ago it was possible to pre-order the upcoming blockbuster title on Xbox Live but early purchasing was suddenly removed this week, with customers being told to head to their local retail store if they want to ensure a physical copy of the game. More recently, the season pass and DLC content for the game has also been removed from Xbox Live as well as Amazon.

Several sites have been reporting this news and also trying to get to the bottom of it. So far the word seems to be that Microsoft had no hand in pulling the game, it all came direct from publishers Activision, who have removed the game from these digital outlets.

Those players who managed to get their digital pre-order in before this issue don't seem to be having any problems and should be able to go ahead and pre-load the game as soon as its available, which obviously means the game data is available on Microsoft's servers. So why has it been hidden away from more purchases?

One possible reason is because Activision has signed a major deal with Sony PlayStation to allow the PS4 to be the lead platform for Call of Duty this year. That means exclusive access to DLC on Sony's systems as well as other incentives and a lot of promotional material which will focus on the PS4 in particular. Maybe Sony has a major digital push coming for Black Ops 3 and don't want competition from Xbox?

In the meantime, you can still easily pre-order the game on Xbox One at your local retail store, or on another platform digitally. Or you could avoid all this nonsense and just go in after release date and pick it up off a shelf!

Call of Duty Black Ops 3 is coming to PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC on the 6th of November 2015.