Call of Duty: Black Ops Review (PS5)

The dollars, Mason

Version Reviewed: PS5 Pro / European

I’m all for ports, remasters, and remakes of old games, but even I’m struggling to rationalise why the first Call of Duty: Black Ops has landed on PS5 in 2026.

A multiplayer legend of the PS3 days? Absolutely. It came at the peak of Call of Duty dominance and became a strong fan favourite. However, that was 16 years ago, and nostalgia can’t paper over enough cracks to justify a barebones port.

Call of Duty: Black Ops on PS5 is Call of Duty: Black Ops as it was on PS3.

There are minimal visual improvements. You don’t get a frame rate boost. You don’t get an FOV slider. You don’t get any new content.

Call of Duty: Black Ops runs at 1080p on PS5 — that is the single and only enhancement the port has over the original 2010 version.

You can’t push the frame rate up to 120FPS; it remains at 60FPS. Added to more recent Call of Duty titles on console, there’s no field of view slider. The PS5 DualSense controller features aren’t utilised in any way.

And publisher Activision is charging £34.99 / $39.99 for it.

PS Plus members have access to a 50% discount for a month, but that only reduces the price to what the port should have probably cost in the first place. Call of Duty games rarely receive deep sales, so the 16-year-old Call of Duty: Black Ops will spend most of its time at full price on PS5.

You don’t even get all the content with that purchase; Activision has chosen to sell a season pass containing the four multiplayer and Zombies map packs. Again, PS Plus subscribers have one month to buy them at a discounted rate, but without the sale, the season pass is £25.99 / $29.99.

Nobody should have to pay these kinds of prices for the port of a PS3 game released in 2010 — it’s a complete and utter rip-off.

What of the game itself, though? It launched when Call of Duty campaigns were still a highlight, and Black Ops still offers enjoyable single player levels despite how dated it is.

The first entry to set the series in the Cold War, this was where you got the famous “The numbers, Mason” quote in a campaign of illusion and intensity. It’s packed full of excellent set-piece moments and now iconic characters, all building to a cracking finale that’s now spawned six sequels.

When fans say they want the return of quality Call of Duty campaigns, this is what they’re talking about.

The multiplayer modes, meanwhile, are actually a strong example of the online suite PlayStation fans have been yearning for: a straightforward package with no live service elements. You can fire up a few rounds of Team Deathmatch, have a good time, then log off without any fears you’ll miss out on something between play sessions.

It’s not going to compare to the scale and polish of today's multiplayer efforts, and peer-to-peer connections rather than dedicated servers for online matches mean connection issues will be more frequent. There are also reports of input lag, and a lack of crossplay restricts you to matchmaking with the PS5, PS4 player base alone.

There is some fun to be had online, but make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.

Zombies, meanwhile, occupies an interesting position in Black Ops: it was Treyarch’s second attempt, so it was a more comprehensive offering than the original World at War mode, but it hadn’t reached the complexities of the latest games.

As such, Black Ops presents a great jumping-on point if the Zombies modes in the most recent titles are too hard for you to follow with all their wacky objectives and features.

The content of the base game remains entertaining, then, but Treyarch and port studio Iron Galaxy needed graphical and frame rate updates on top to even come close to validating the price point.

There’s no two ways about it: this is a PS3 game being sold on PS5 at a premium.

As good as Call of Duty: Black Ops might have been all those years ago, you’re better off spending your money on pretty much anything else.

Conclusion

Call of Duty might have been the king of multiplayer during the PS3 era, but you can’t charge as much as $40 for that same 2010 experience all these years later. Black Ops on PS5 is a barebones port of a 16-year-old title — an offer you should outright refuse to invest in.