Two Call of Duty Black Ops drop on PS5 and fans rage again: 'Outta their minds'

Call of Duty gamers are outraged at the $70 price tag for two of the best games in the entire series - and it’s absolutely justified.

Without question, the Call of Duty series is one of the most popular and financially lucrative video game properties there ever was. Since its inception in 2003 on the PC, for the most part, the series has grown bigger with each new yearly release. This is despite a sudden dip in quality in recent times, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 being one of the series lowest points.

In this generation, especially, for better or worse, we’ve seen a plethora of remakes and remasters with developers and publishers hoping to cash in on fan nostalgia. The most recent high-profile remake arrived this week with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, which has overall been warmly received by the community.

If Activision were to remake or remaster any game in its military shooter series, at the top of that list would be the first two Black Ops games, which were originally released in 2010 and 2012, respectively, on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Well, this week, that’s exactly what we got, which should by all accounts be cause for celebration for Call of Duty fans, right?

Call of Duty: Black Ops Coming to PS5 Should Be Great News for Fans

Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops II arrived this week, playable on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. So, what’s the issue with these remasters? The first issue is that these are not remasters; they’re straight ports with the only improvement being a base resolution boost, which has more to do with the console and TV, rather than Iron Galaxy Studio, which handled the ports.

The visuals, including new assets, have not been improved. There are no improvements to gameplay or even a 120Hz mode. These are about as basic ports as you could ever get. On top of that, at the full RRP, Call of Duty: Black Ops costs $39.99/£34.99 and Black Ops II $39.99/£34.99.

Furthermore, neither of these re-releases comes with any DLC. If you want the DLC, you’re going to have to spend an additional $29.99/£25.99 on each. So, with all the DLC content, you’re looking at a total of just under $70/£61. To be more extreme, if you wanted to buy both games with all DLC, it would cost a whopping $140/£122, for games that are over a decade old with no notable improvements. To be fair, this is the same price as Xbox and Steam, which doesn't make it any better.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Activision

READ MORE: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Review - A Shell Of Its Former Self

Gamers react to the overpriced Call of Duty games

“They aren't even remakes, they are straight ports,” exclaimed Reddit user Ohnezone.

“Forget remakes, they didn’t even bother remastering them. No up-res textures, no higher quality servers, no frame rate improvements, nothing. They’re outta their f****** minds,” added Efficient_Exchange44.

“The numbers, Mason, they're telling you not to buy...,” said BlueGoliath, referring to the in-game brainwashing techniques used against its protagonist, Alex Mason.

“If you're dumb enough to pay that kind of money for games that old, you get exactly what you deserve,” declared Ronin22222.

“They'd have to be full fleshed out remakes for me to consider that cost,” replied BluDYT.

You can get both Call of Duty: Black Ops Games discounted, but there’s a catch

If you subscribe to PlayStation Plus, both Call of Duty: Black Ops games cost $19.99/£17.49 with the season pass at $9.89/£8.57, which feels a lot more reasonable and perhaps what the price should be in the first place. But you have to subscribe to Sony’s service to get this discount.

Thankfully, this discount isn't going away just yet, because you have a month to claim it before both games and the season pass are sold at full price for everyone. Both Call of Duty: Black Ops games and the season passes are available at the lower price until August 6.