Call of Duty fans on PlayStation 5 have been patiently waiting for the new ports of the first two Black Ops games to arrive, and now they have, along with all their original DLC.
all Black Ops 1 & 2 DLC Have dropped on PS5 alongside base games
A few weeks ago, Activision announced that it’s porting the first two entries in Treyarch’s popular Black Ops subseries to PlayStation 5. While these aren’t remasters, they’re bringing the two classic shooters to newer gamers who may have missed out on the PS3 and Xbox 360 era. After several weeks of waiting and wondering when these ports will arrive, they’ve finally become available on the PlayStation Store.
Back in the days of the PS3 and Xbox 360, post-launch content in Call of Duty games worked a bit differently than it does today. Instead of the modern live service model offering new updates, seasons, and battle passes, a Call of Duty game’s post-launch multiplayer and zombies maps came in the form of DLC map packs. It was a simpler time. Each game received about four DLC packs that extended the game’s life cycle well into the following year with new maps players can enjoy. In many cases, some of a game’s best maps came as part of a DLC pack, like Black Ops 2‘s Mob of the Dead Zombies map or its Grind multiplayer map.
the DLC packs require separate purchases
Both ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 have just hit the PlayStation Store, but they’re not alone. Part of making these classic games available on PS5 has meant that Activision also brought over all of each game’s DLC map packs as well, though in a bit of an old-fashioned way.
While this is great news for fans of the first two Black Ops games, it comes with a major caveat: The DLCs are not included and must be purchased separately as season passes. Each base game costs $40, and the season pass for each game, which includes all four of each game’s DLC packs, costs $30 each. This means that fans who want the complete Black Ops 1 experience will need to shell out $70. PlayStation Plus subscribers currently have a deal that cuts each base game to $20 and each season pass to $10. The deal ends on August 6, so subscribers have a month to get in and grab these games and their season passes at more reasonable prices.
Considering the fact that both of these games are well over a decade old, the $40 price tag for each base game alone seems quite steep for simple ports. Then there’s the fact that the season passes cost almost as much as the base games. Even most modern remasters, like last year’s Oblivion remaster, include DLCs without jacking the price sky high. Oblivion‘s remaster, for example, included both story DLCs and a ton of other add-ons all for $50. For a Black Ops enthusiast to pick up both these shooters and their season passes without a PS Plus sub discount, it would cost them a whopping $140.
Regardless of the pricing of these Black Ops ports, it’s good to know that fans will get to once again experience the glee of some of these beloved DLC maps, like Black Ops 2‘s rusty, dusty Buried map that took players to an underground western ghost town, or the snowy WWI-set Origins map where giant robots roam. Hopefully the prices of these ports and their season passes will drop over time, though considering they came out over 14 years ago and still cost this much, fans shouldn’t expect them to do so for a while.