The promised PlayStation 4 and 5 ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 have arrived. But unfortunately, these updated releases have left players disappointed at the quality offered for the price. Activision is charging £35 ($40) for each Black Ops re-release, meaning a total of £70 ($80) if you want both. These prices do not include their DLC packs, either, which is unusual given how most game re-releases these days typically come with all associated content bundled in.
If you want the map packs, you’ll need to fork out £26 ($30) for each season pass, and a total of £52 ($60) if you want to own all the add-ons for both games. All told, that’s £122 ($140) for the full package.
To lessen that shock, Activision is offering PlayStation Plus members a substantial discount, dropping the game price to £17.49 ($20) each, and £8.57 ($9.98) for each season pass. The total price then becomes a more acceptable £52.12 ($60), though that offer is only available until 6th August.
With such a high price, you’d expect the re-releases to have enhancements to justify it, but this is not the case. Activision confirmed prior to release that we should expect the two games to be ports, rather than remasters and they really are a case of doing the minimum.
Digital Foundry called the Black Ops ports “low effort”, lamenting the games offering barely any improvements over what’s available today on Xbox through backwards compatibility, and certainly nowhere close to what’s possible on PC.
For starters, neither of the two games take any advantage of the PS5 hardware. The ports do not output at 4K, nor do they offer a 120Hz framerate option. None of the features included in modern Call of Duty games, like FOV slider or separate sensitivity settings are included, either.
According to Digital Foundry, the games run at 1080p on PS4 and PS5 with no anti-aliasing. The ports also don’t feature any enhanced visuals or improvements to shadows. The only upgrade here, really, is the output resolution (1080p), which is higher than the Xbox 360 version’s 608p, but you also get this through backwards compatibility on Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S today.
Given how little marketing and communication the two games received prior to launch, players were only able to discover many of the ports’ features after getting their hands on them. One thing that players have been theorising about has been whether or not the ports support cross-play between the two console generations – PS4 and PS5.
There’s also been the topic of separate matchmaking pools for players who own the season pass and those who don’t. Considering they’re not being provided as part of the package, players rightly want to know if, well, it’s worth buying the DLC.
Back when Call of Duty released multiple paid map packs each year, players have only been able to matchmake with others who own the expansion. This limits the player pool significantly, of course, so players were curious how the re-releases would handle it.
But Activision cleared up some of these issues on X, clarifying that PS4 and PS5 players are able to matchmake with one another, and that season pass owners can matchmake with non-owners, meaning buying the DLC packs won’t lock you out of the wider pool, except for when you’re playing DLC maps.
