Call of Duty: Black Ops PS5 Port Inherited a Vulnerability from the PS3 Era

Activision has temporarily disabled some modes and started investigating the issue.

Activision recently released the first two Call of Duty: Black Ops titles on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Both games were ported to modern consoles as direct ports without graphics updates. However, along with the original content, the new version of the first Black Ops seems to have inherited a vulnerability that existed back in the PlayStation 3 era.

Soon after the release, players with modified save files began appearing in online matches. The exploit allows artificially increasing the amount of experience gained: for example, a character can endlessly throw grenades and die from their own explosions, accelerating leveling up while simultaneously disrupting other match participants.

According to a modder interviewed by YouTuber Tdawgsmitty, the problem stems from the fact that the new version's save files use almost the same format and encryption as the PlayStation 3 era files. Data can be copied to a USB drive, decrypted with third-party tools, modified, and then uploaded back into the game.

Activision is already aware of the problem, has temporarily disabled some playlists, and has begun an investigation. So far, the company has released a server-side fix for some modes, but according to the modder, the exploit can still be used in certain multiplayer modes.