Tech Experts Slam Activision's 'Low Effort' Call of Duty: Black Ops PS5 Port as 'Deeply Odd'

Activision's ports of the beloved Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 on PlayStation 4 and PS5 have drawn criticism not only for their price but also for disappointing graphics performance. Digital Foundry's tech experts examined the port of the original 2010 Black Ops and had harsh words for Activision's work. Their main complaint: the Black Ops port runs at 1080p instead of 4K, despite being a 16-year-old game originally on PS3 and Xbox 360, and it lacks anti-aliasing.

DF also criticized the frame rate, which is capped at 60Hz even on PS5. 'A 1080p60 presentation would be acceptable for the PS4 version—and there is one!—but for a new PS5 conversion, it's disappointingly poor and far below what the hardware can do,' DF said.

'For a native PS5 title and a somewhat high-profile port, this is a deeply odd state of affairs,' DF continued. 'Even the game's obvious visual flaws are preserved: shadow quality was poor back in the day, but why keep that problem now when so much more graphics power is available?'

On the bright side, the PS5 and PS4 versions are better than the Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One backward-compatible version, which sticks to the original Xbox 360 resolution of 608p with no enhancements.

We previously reported that the PlayStation Black Ops ports cost $40 each, with separate season passes at $29.99. So, the complete experience (Black Ops 1 and 2 with all DLC) costs $140 for decade-old games. PlayStation Plus subscribers get a discount until August 6, making each game $20 and season passes $9, for a total of $58.