Activision Investigating Major Exploits in New Call of Duty: Black Ops Port

Activision is investigating issues revolving around mods and hackers in Call of Duty: Black Ops on PS4 and PS5.

Last week, Activision dropped ports of Black Ops 1 and 2 on PS4 and PS5. Although they don’t feature any significant improvements or upgrades, fans were extremely happy to see these games accessible on PlayStation. However, the fun was spoiled pretty quickly.

Earlier this week, modders and exploiters began compromising lobbies in the Black Ops 1 port, leading to some players calling the game “unplayable.” These lobbies allow you to rank up rapidly and basically make the entire progression system irrelevant. Activision took action pretty quickly and removed certain playlists to address the matter; however, concerns remain.

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YouTuber Tdawgsmitty interviewed one of the game’s modders to try and figure out what’s happening. As it turns out, the issue is partially rooted in the fact that the game has exploits left over from the PS3 version.

“Essentially, what you’re doing is that it’s like PS3 where you copy [a save file] to your USB, and there’s a website that lets you unencrypt it,” said the modder. “The site lets you use a jailbroken PS4/PS5, and it will decrypt it for you. The save data is the exact same as PS3. What sucks about this port is that Iron Galaxy and Activision didn’t bother changing the encryption on the files, which is the whole reason why this is available right now. That’s the only reason why.”

The modder went on to note that there are people selling services that allow others to have their stats and game modded. Thankfully, there are no aimbots right now that allow people to easily kill other players with minimal effort. Things could definitely be worse, but it’s unfortunate that the game is so easily manipulated.

I highly recommend watching the whole video to learn more about the situation. Activision confirmed to Tdawgsmitty that it is actively investigating these issues and looking to resolve things. Only time will tell how long that takes, but at least Activision isn’t abandoning these ports after bringing in a boatload of cash.

Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN’s news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.