Cheaters and Hackers Overrun Black Ops on PS4 and PS5

Last week, the PlayStation 4 and PS5 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 hit the market, priced at $40. However, these ports lack the paid DLC maps and any quality-of-life enhancements. Despite this, many players jumped at the chance to relive the classic titles. Unfortunately, those returning to BLOPS 1 or 2 are facing a wave of hackers and cheaters exploiting the game, which has led to some playlists being temporarily disabled due to the rampant issues.

On July 9, following some leaks and prior confirmation, Black Ops and Black Ops 2 became available on PS4 and PS5. While Xbox players have enjoyed these titles for years through backward compatibility, PlayStation users were left out of the fun since the original releases in 2010 and 2012. Now that players have flocked to PSN to experience the nostalgia of Black Ops, the ports seem to be little more than slightly tweaked versions of the original PS3 games, leading to a surge in hacking and cheating.

Players have reported a glitch that allows them to reach max prestige in BO1, completely ruining the experience for others. Instead of starting fresh and enjoying the game as intended, many are opting for instant gratification.

Across platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube, players are sharing their experiences of encountering cheaters in Black Ops 1 and 2 lobbies on PS4 and PS5. One prevalent method involves modifying save data, joining Domination matches, and then self-destructing to rack up massive XP and achieve max rank and prestige.

Clips are circulating of players entering CoD: Black Ops Domination lobbies on PS5, only to be met with a kill feed filled with players blowing themselves up with grenades right after spawning. This often results in matches needing to pause and reconnect to a new host, which may or may not fill back up with new players who also exploit the glitch.

Even more frustrating is the issue of players killing those using hacks, resulting in a significant amount of negative XP that can lock them at negative level one. Since players must be at least level one to matchmake, this effectively bars them from accessing multiplayer.

“Part of me was afraid this was gonna happen. Another massive L for CoD,” one user lamented on Reddit.

“Exactly the same experience here…anyone arguing this doesn’t ‘hurt’ anyone should watch this clip,” another user commented under a video showcasing the exploit in action.

In response to the chaos, Activision announced that it had disabled certain playlists in Black Ops to investigate the reported issues. It’s likely that playlists featuring Domination or the large-scale mode Ground War, which are also prone to exploitation, have been affected.

Frustratingly, players have noted that these exploits and hacks have plagued the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Black Ops and its sequel for years. Many veterans were concerned that these new ports, being essentially bare-bones transfers of the PS3 versions, would carry over the same issues and be compromised shortly after release. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what has transpired. While some players remain hopeful for a fix from Activision, others are skeptical, especially since the Xbox 360 versions of the games have remained broken for years, even on modern Xbox hardware.