Call of Duty: Black Ops Port Called 'Unplayable' as Exploiters Overrun Lobbies

The new PS4 and PS5 ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops are being labeled 'unplayable' by fans due to widespread exploits in multiplayer lobbies.

Last week, Activision released PS4 and PS5 versions of the first two Black Ops games, delighting fans. Despite being a bit pricey for games with no major updates or changes, players were excited to revisit their favorites. However, the experience has been far from smooth. In addition to server and hit registration issues, players are encountering compromised lobbies.

In Black Ops 1, players can easily host modded lobbies, enabling exploits. If you join one of these lobbies, you can simply blow yourself up with a grenade upon spawning, leave the game, and instantly reach max rank. As a result, players are entering lobbies, immediately killing themselves, and quitting. If the entire enemy team leaves, you win by forfeit. This has frustrated fans who can't actually play or enjoy the game.

A tweet showed Black Ops 1 lobbies filled with players blowing themselves up to hit max level instantly on the 16-year-old game.

"So [Black Ops 1] is now infected with the XP thing where you max level by nading yourself then leaving," said one player. "It's leading to unplayable lobbies." Another echoed: "[Black Ops 1 Ground War] is literally ruined with this XP glitch. Cannot play a lobby without 6 people leaving, rejoining, and killing themselves over and over again. What a joke."

Some are pointing out the hypocrisy, as fans begged for older COD games only to ruin them. "I don’t know what’s people obsession with getting into EXP lobbies or paying money for an UNLOCKALL like we all moaned about how s**t the current state of COD was and then as soon as we get something good, you find the quickest way to exploit the ports… hasn’t even been a week."

While some clean lobbies exist, you'll still see occasional suicides in the killfeed. Ultimately, it's far from ideal. Call of Duty fans have begged Activision for over a decade to re-release older entries, and now that it's happened, they're racing to max level through exploits.

It's a disappointing outcome, and given the minimal effort put into these ports, it's unlikely there will be moderation or updates to fix these issues. One can only hope that once many players hit max rank, the problem will fade. But it's also hard to see players sticking around with nothing left to unlock.