Overview
- The PlayStation ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 went live on Wednesday, July 9, and quickly surged to the top of the PlayStation Store and large concurrent audiences reported to rival the player counts of Black Ops 7.
- Both releases are straight ports with minimal technical upgrades, sell for about $40 each with separate season passes, and support PS4/PS5 cross-generation matchmaking while DLC map pools remain separate when those maps are played.
- Within days players documented widespread exploits including negative XP that can lock accounts below level 1, instant prestige, unlock-all accounts, and wallhacks that made many lobbies unplayable.
- In response Activision and Iron Galaxy disabled select playlists, deployed a server-side 'first phase' update that restored some playlists and reset players with negative XP to level 20, and promised additional mitigations to follow.
- The incidents have sharpened community anger over pricing, perceived low-effort ports, and platform parity with Xbox, and raised questions about whether nostalgia-driven sales justify the technical and anti-cheat work needed to sustain multiplayer.