Activision has finally ported Xbox 360-era FPS Call of Duty: Black Ops and its sequel to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. That’s cool, as these games have been playable via backwards compatibility on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S for some time now. However, if you want to buy both games and all of their DLC, it will cost you $60+. And that’s with the temporary PS Plus discount. When that expires, the price doubles to $140.
Last month, after numerous rumors and datamined leaks, Activision officially announced that it was porting Call of Duty: Black Ops (released originally in 2010) and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (originally released in 2012) to PS4 and PS5 after fans had begged for it. For years, thanks to backwards compatibility, these and other older CoD games that launched back on the Xbox 360 were playable on newer Xbox consoles, and with full online support, too. But PS5 and PS4 owners had no way to play either of the classic BLOPS titles. That changes today with the quiet release of both games on both PS4 and PS5. But fan reaction is mostly negative, as people are shocked by the high prices and lack of improvements.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is $40, but currently marked down to $20 until August 6. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is also $40 and is discounted to $20 until that same date. And then there’s the DLC for each game. Right now, the season pass for each Black Ops port costs $10. But when the discount ends in August, each season pass will cost players $30. Ouch.
One of the very first comments on a Reddit post sharing the news that Black Ops and Black Ops 2 are out now on PSN is a simple: “Bruh, you have to buy the DLC again?” And yeah, you do! Remember buying DLC map packs for shooters? Welcome back to 2012, baby. At least these ports include Zombies and all other modes.
Making the price even worse is the fact that, from what I can tell, these ports are extremely bare-bones. There’s no added content, behind-the-scenes features, or new maps. Worse, these ports lack an FOV slider, don’t support 120FPS, and seem to feature no real graphical updates beyond some light upscaling to make the image fit better on a big 4K TV. They really are just the old games slapped onto PS4 and PS5 at a premium price and nothing else.
“Reselling the DLC is so greedy and annoying considering that it will split the player base between people who have it and people who don’t—and it’s not 2010 anymore where this is the hit multiplayer game of the year and guaranteed to have lots of players indefinitely,” complained another person on Reddit.
Some have pointed out that these prices match how much the games cost on Xbox and that those versions also don’t include any new features or major visual upgrades when playing on Xbox Series consoles. That’s true, but really, this is such a bungled opportunity for Activision to win back fans and get some good PR. They could have had a port house work on slightly improved versions of both games, bundled together with all the DLC and some crossplay, and then released those ports on both Xbox and PlayStation for like $30, and people would have been over the moon. Instead, Activision has chosen the worst, most greedy way to re-release these beloved shooters and made everyone mad. Good job?