Ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, released in 2026, have achieved significant commercial success, selling over 11 million copies combined on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Gavin Goslin, a developer who worked on the original titles at Treyarch, shared his mixed feelings about the ports' performance.
Goslin stated on LinkedIn that while it is gratifying to see these games continue to perform well, it is also disheartening to observe that the financial benefits are primarily accruing to Activision executives rather than the original development teams. He described the immense effort and crunch time involved in creating the games, emphasizing the dedication of the development team. Goslin believes that executives receiving substantial bonuses from the enduring success of these older titles should lead to retroactive profit sharing with the developers who built them.
The re-releases are direct ports, featuring the games in their original state without new content or significant updates, a fact that aligned with fan desires. Prior to these ports, playing Black Ops 1 and 2 on modern PlayStation consoles was not possible, as they were not made available through backward compatibility on PS4 or PS5, requiring users to find older hardware.
Activision marketing executive Tyler Bahl acknowledged the ports' unexpected success, noting that sales exceeded expectations. He attributed this strong performance to pent-up demand and indicated that Activision aims to apply these learnings to future titles, including the upcoming Modern Warfare 4, scheduled for release on October 23. Activision has also teased the introduction of a new sub-franchise following Modern Warfare 4.