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It has only been a few days since Activision brought Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, and hackers are already ruining the experience for returning players.
Modded lobbies have started appearing in the original Black Ops, allowing some players to farm huge amounts of XP while others are being hit with negative XP that can drop their prestige below level 1 and lock them out of multiplayer. Activision has now deployed the first phase of a fix and says more protections are on the way.
How did the XP exploit affect players?
In modes such as Domination, matches could fill up with players repeatedly spawning, blowing themselves up, and disconnecting instead of playing normally. From what we can gather, some modded lobbies grant players huge amounts of XP, which is being farmed to increase prestige levels.
Other hacked lobbies appear to do the opposite. Reports suggest that blowing yourself up in one of these matches can result in negative XP, dropping a player’s prestige below level 1 and potentially locking them out of multiplayer. Some players have also claimed that the hacked lobbies affected their Call of Duty Points.
What has Activision done to fix it?
Activision initially disabled select playlists while it investigated the reports. The company has since updated those playlists through a server-side fix and reset players with negative XP to level 20, allowing them to access multiplayer and start progressing again.
Activision says this is only the first phase and that more mitigations will arrive in future updates. Its announcement currently refers to the original Black Ops on PS4 and PS5, leaving it unclear whether similar reported issues in Black Ops 2 are being handled separately.
Hacked lobbies are not a new problem for these games. The original PS3 releases, especially Black Ops 2, were frequently affected by mod menus, XP exploits, and lobbies that could alter or corrupt player progression. Activision’s own support documentation warned that entering a hacked lobby could result in the loss or modification of ranks and stats. Many returning players had hoped the new ports and updated servers would leave those problems behind, but it looks like Activision has not yet resolved these age-old issues.
