Proceed With Caution: Black Ops Hackers on PS4, PS5 Are Giving Players Negative XP That Will Block Them From Playing Multiplayer
In case you didn’t know, Activision rereleased Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 on PS4 and PS5 last week, and they were straight ports with no bells and whistles added.
While that might be the case, gamers around the world still embraced it, and bought each game at $40 a pop just to have that sweet feeling of Call of Duty multiplayer nostalgia once again.
Unfortunately, as is the case with most modern online games, cheaters and hackers have swooped in to ruin everyone’s fun mere days after release.
It’s not just your standard wallhacks and aimbots either, as this one hack will literally make the game unplayable after they’ve experienced it.
Black Ops & Black Ops 2 on PS4 and PS5 Plagued by Cheaters Mere Days After Release
Before anyone swoops in and says that “Black Ops 1 & BO2 had hackers for a long time on ALL platforms,” take note that Activision confirmed that the re-releases would run on completely new servers. That gave everyone hope that we’d be able to play these classics without any hackers and cheaters.
It seems we were a bit too optimistic on that front, as here we are, four days later, and the game is already filled with not just cheaters, but also hackers who are just out there, ready to spoil everyone’s fun.
One such hack that’s affecting gamers right this moment is with matches of Domination on the original Black Ops.
If you see someone in the lobby already at max rank, do NOT kill anyone in the game, and just leave. If you don’t, there are two things that can happen: you get an insane amount of XP for one kill and reach Level 50 right away, or you get the same amount of XP, but you’ll se a minus sign (-) in front of it, which means you are below Level 1, and given you have to Level 1 to play multiplayer, this will essentially lock you out of the game.
It seems these hackers are also gaining permanent access to Pro Perks, which significantly impacts game balance. These cheats are said to be done by fiddling with the game’s save files, though we’ll refrain from sharing more info.
These hacks have made it a chore to play the game regularly, since these cheaters/hackers are constantly joining and leaving games to wreak havoc. The video below shows how many of these cheaters are leaving and joining matches that it’s literally causing issues with the spawns. This also translates to playlists with no players, as everyone leaves once they see a cheater, and has resulted in Ground War modes (9v9 matches) seeing only 3v3 and 2v2 teams.
(Video by ZemlyaNovaya)
So to recap, do NOT play games of Domination with max-ranked players, as getting a kill in this match will net you a ton of XP that will bring you from Level 1 to Level 50, or it will give you negative XP that will make it impossible to play multiplayer because you aren’t even at Level 1, or you can’t progress past it.
If you see a lot of grenade-suicides happening in a match, leave immediately. If you are in a Domination match with max-ranked players, leave as soon as possible.
The only good thing we can report on right now regarding the ports is that they do support crossplay between PS4 and PS5, contrary to earlier reports. Players who own the DLC can also matchmake with those who don’t own it.
As far as we’re aware, there is no fix for this yet. We’ve reached out to Activision about this game-breaking hack, and will update the article if we hear anything back. Let’s hope this is sorted by Activision and Iron Galaxy soon, or I can see these games fading out faster than anticipated.
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