Call of Duty Black Ops 1 and 2 PS4/PS5 ports swamped by hackers as Activision scrambles to fix

The newly released PS4 and PS5 ports of Call of Duty Black Ops 1 and Black Ops 2 have been overrun by hackers and modded lobbies almost immediately after launch, with players reporting the games are barely playable. Activision temporarily pulled the worst-affected playlists — Ground War and Domination — on Monday before re-enabling them on Tuesday as part of what it called "the first phase of a fix."

The exploits trace back to a fundamental oversight by developer Iron Galaxy: the PS4/PS5 ports use the exact same unencrypted save file format as the original PS3 version. A modder interviewed by YouTuber Tdawgsmitty explained the process clearly — hackers copy a PS4 save file, upload it to a third-party site that decrypts and modifies it, then re-upload the altered file to PSN. From there it can be pulled down on PS5 too, since Activision confirmed cross-gen play between PS4 and PS5. The result is hackers who can instantly hit max prestige, demote other players to sub-level-one, grant themselves Pro Perks, and enable wall hacks. The modder also noted that people are already selling modding services, though there are no aimbots in circulation yet. Activision issued a server-side fix targeting the negative XP exploit specifically and bumped all affected players up to level 20, with more fixes promised.

This is a well-worn problem for both games. Black Ops 1 and 2 spent years plagued by the same hacker ecosystem on PS3 and Xbox 360 — modded lobbies, prestige glitches, and stat manipulation were rampant long after the games' active support windows closed. The ports, developed by Iron Galaxy rather than original studio Treyarch, launched with no meaningful upgrades and at a price point that drew criticism, yet still shot to the top of the PS Store charts. The fact that the save encryption was never updated essentially handed the old PS3 modding community a ready-made toolkit on day one.

Activision told Tdawgsmitty it is actively investigating and working toward a resolution, so further fixes beyond the XP patch are expected. The Call of Duty subreddit and social media are full of frustrated players, and the community's patience is already thin given the ports' high price and bare-bones feature set. How quickly Activision and Iron Galaxy can close the underlying save-file exploit will determine whether these ports recover their reputation or become cautionary tales.