PlayStation players who were quietly hoping Activision would price its upcoming Black Ops ports reasonably just got a cold splash of reality. New listings on the PC and Xbox marketplaces have locked in Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 at $39.99 each, and that price tag does not include any DLC. For fans waiting on the PS4 and PS5 versions, those numbers are hard to ignore.
Activision confirmed last week that ports (not remasters) of both Treyarch classics are coming to PlayStation platforms next month. The emphasis on "port" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies modes are confirmed to be included, but there has been no official word on DLC, enhancements, or pricing for the PlayStation versions specifically.
What the Microsoft Store listings actually show
The updated PC and Xbox marketplace entries do more than just confirm the $39.99 base price. Individual DLC packs have been repriced to $9.99 (down from $14.99), and both season passes now sit at $29.99, reduced from $49.99. That sounds like good news on the surface, but run the numbers and the picture changes fast.
If you want both games with their full DLC packages, you are looking at $139.98 total. That is for two games from 2010 and 2012, with no confirmed visual upgrades, running on hardware that could theoretically push them significantly beyond their original specs.
The community reaction has been about as measured as you would expect. "Not including the DLC and charging $40 on games from Obama's first term is nasty work," one player posted on X. Another popular post put it simply: "Games this old should be 20 bucks max WITH the DLC." Over on Reddit, a user summed up the sentiment: "That's worth like $20-30 max with all DLCs included. For a remake/remaster with the DLCs I would've said $40, maybe $50 at the very high end."
Someone else went with the classic in-game callback: "The numbers Mason, they're telling you not to buy..."
Why PlayStation players are the most anxious
Here's the thing: Xbox players have had access to both Black Ops games through backward compatibility for years. The pricing update there is mostly a rebalancing exercise on existing content. PlayStation players, however, have never had legal access to these games on modern hardware. For them, the ports represent the first chance to play Black Ops 2's multiplayer or Zombies on a current-gen console, which makes the pricing sting even more.
"$40 for games we already purchased (allegedly with no enhancements btw) is an absolute atrocity," one frustrated fan posted on X. The "already purchased" angle is a real one. A significant portion of the player base bought both games at launch, bought DLC on top of that, and is now being asked to pay again for a straight port with no confirmed improvements.
Activision has not given a firm release date beyond "next month" for the PlayStation versions, and no pricing announcement has accompanied the port confirmation. That silence is exactly what is fueling the speculation.
The bigger picture heading into this year's CoD cycle
Both Black Ops 1 and 2 carry serious legacy weight in the franchise. They are consistently cited as the high watermark for Treyarch's work, and the anticipation around their PlayStation debut is genuine. The ports land while players are also keeping an eye on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and the broader direction of the franchise under Microsoft's ownership.
What most players miss in this conversation is the precedent angle. How Activision prices these ports will signal a lot about how it plans to handle future legacy releases. If $39.99 per game becomes the standard for catalog ports with no enhancements, the backlash here is just the opening round.
For now, the July window is the only concrete timeline on the table. If you want to stay sharp on everything Black Ops in the meantime, the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 guides are worth bookmarking while the community waits for Activision to show its hand on pricing. More gaming guides covering the full CoD lineup are also available if you want broader franchise coverage ahead of the ports going live.
