Activision Addresses Black Ops XP Hack in First PS4 & PS5 Patch

The return of the original Black Ops has been a huge win for Call of Duty fans, but the celebration didn’t last long. Within days of launch, reports of a game-breaking XP exploit started flooding social media, leaving some players unable to level up or even continue playing normally. Now, Activision has started rolling out its first fix.

Activision begins first phase of Black Ops XP hack fix

Activision and Iron Galaxy have rolled out the first phase of an update targeting the XP exploit affecting the recently released PS4 and PS5 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops. The issue wasn’t a typical cheating tool like an aimbot or wallhack. Instead, it could leave affected players with negative XP progression, effectively preventing them from progressing through multiplayer.

Per Activision’s post on X, the company says the initial fix has now gone live through a server-side playlist update. As part of the rollout, the Domination playlist has returned with updated settings, while players who were stuck with negative XP have been reset to Level 20, allowing them to resume normal progression.

Activision also confirmed this is only the beginning. The studio says additional mitigations are already in development and will arrive in future updates to further reduce the impact of the exploit. It hasn’t confirmed whether those changes will require a downloadable patch or if they’ll continue rolling out through server-side updates.

Players should also keep in mind that cross-play between the PS4 and PS5 versions remains supported, despite some confusion within the community after launch.