Call Of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 ports are skipping Xbox but for a good reason

Treyarch has confirmed re-releases of the first two Call Of Duty: Black Ops games are coming next month, but only for PlayStation consoles.

After how poorly Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 performed, it wouldn’t be surprising if Activision opted to keep the Black Ops subseries out of the limelight for a while.

And yet that’s not the case at all, even though Activision is playing things safe and simply bringing back older Black Ops games that people already like, specifically the first two entries.

Re-releases of Black Ops 1 and 2 had already been rumoured, but series developer Treyarch has now formally announced them for a July launch, but only for PlayStation platforms.

The lack of any Xbox release has some people confused, but while Treyarch and Activision are being annoyingly vague about it, there is a reasonable explanation for the omission.

Are Call Of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 being remastered?

No, unlike Activision’s old remasters of the first two Modern Warfare games, Black Ops 1 and 2 are only getting straight ports. So, they’ll be identical to the original versions, beyond the standard improvements you get from simply running them on a PlayStation 5 – like faster loading speeds.

These ports are being handled by Iron Galaxy, the same developer that was conscripted for the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 remake.

It’s official: the original Black Ops and Black Ops 2 are being ported to PlayStation in July, courtesy of our partners at @IronGalaxy. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/uqTZ6u09B5

— Treyarch (@Treyarch) June 17, 2026

Why aren’t the Black Ops 1 and 2 ports on Xbox?

The lack of an Xbox version of these ports may seem like further proof of Microsoft’s confusing approach to exclusivity and multiformat releases, but the real reason is that you can already play these games on Xbox.

Black Ops 1 and 2, which originally launched for the Xbox 360, were added to Xbox’s backwards compatibility programme in 2016 and 2017, respectively, ensuring they’d still be playable on the Xbox One. As such, they’ve always been available on the Xbox Series X/S and have remained available on PC since their initial launches.

By comparison, the PlayStation 3 versions of the games are locked to that console. You can’t buy them digitally through the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5 stores, and those consoles’ lack of backwards compatibility means you can’t run physical copies either.

What Activision is doing here is simply making Black Ops 1 and 2 available on current PlayStation hardware, which could be why these are just ports and not full remasters.

Will the Black Ops 1 and 2 ports be available on PlayStation 4?

Presumably, yes, since Treyarch’s announcement doesn’t specify that these ports are only coming to PlayStation 5.

You wouldn’t think this’d be the case, since Activision is set to finally leave last gen consoles like the PlayStation 4 behind with this year’s Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.

However, since these are ports, there should be no difficulty in getting them running on PlayStation 4 and omitting it would be leaving money on the table.

Will the Black Ops 1 and 2 ports have multiplayer?

Yes, Treyarch has confirmed both Black Ops 1 and 2 will retain their multiplayer modes on PlayStation alongside the campaign and Zombies modes. Although that makes sense as, again, these are straight ports so nothing needs to be changed to get them working.

This wasn’t the case with the Modern Warfare 2 remaster from 2020, which infamously lacked any multiplayer, unlike the Modern Warfare 1 remaster from 2016.

Activision said at the time that this was so the player-base wouldn’t be split across the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot and the Warzone battle royale, although it was also no much cheaper to only remaster the campaign.

Whether or not Activision and Microsoft would have done the same had they chosen to remaster Black Ops 1 and 2 is another thing, as there seems to be a lack of consistency on that front.

Last year’s Gears Of War remaster, for instance, kept both its co-op and competitive multiplayer modes, but the fancier Halo: Combat Evolved remake will only contain the campaign mode. Co-op is still present, but the original’s iconic multiplayer is absent.

In a Windows Central interview, executive producer Damon Conn said this was because ‘We’re not trying to replace what is a masterpiece in the original.’

Clearly that doesn’t make much sense when you’re talking about a remake and the truth is more likely to be that a separate multiplayer release will arrive later, perhaps similar to the approach Microsoft took with Halo Infinite, where its multiplayer was also released as a separate, free-to-play download.

Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty has gone on record saying that despite a shift back to console exclusives, future multiplayer games will continue to be multiplatform releases… and yet Gears Of War: E-Day, which has co-op and competitive multiplayer, is locked to Xbox Series X.

Will the Black Ops 1 and 2 ports launch for Switch 2?

Strangely, Treyarch has made no mention of making these ports available on the Nintendo Switch 2. Aside from the fact that Microsoft has been keen to bring Call Of Duty to Nintendo’s platform, starting with Modern Warfare 4, both Black Ops games were available on Nintendo consoles back in the day.

Black Ops 1 launched for the Wii and even the DS, alongside the PlayStation and Xbox versions. Black Ops 2, meanwhile, saw a Wii U port less than a month after the other console versions.

Since the Wii and DS never sold digital copies of games and the Wii U eShop is long dead, these Nintendo versions are inaccessible nowadays, unless you track down physical copies.

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

Comments


Add as preferred source