The Black Ops 1 and 2 PlayStation ports landed on July 9 as the two most important one-life Search and Destroy titles the league runs in its legacy lane, then spent their first week fighting an XP exploit and broken lobbies. On July 17, Iron Galaxy and Activision shipped the biggest cleanup pass yet. It is real progress, and it is not the finish line.
Reported, and worth splitting in two. The patch itself is solid: the notes come straight from Activision's official Call of Duty Updates channel and are quoted verbatim by both MP1st and Game Rant. Whether the ports are now safe to scrim on is not settled. The studio says the XP exploit is not fully resolved, and reporting still flags the party-split bug, lag, and cheaters as live.
What the July 17 patch changed
- Modes restored Domination and Demolition are back in rotation after being pulled to starve the XP exploit.
- PS5 hosts first Public multiplayer now prioritizes PS5 hosts instead of falling back to weaker PS4 hosts.
- Host migration hardened New protections target the host migration workarounds that were being abused.
- Deadzones retuned Controller deadzone behavior was moved back toward the original PS3 feel.
- Crashes fixed The crash when entering multiplayer or backing out of a lobby was addressed.
Why hardcore Search and Destroy cares
Legacy Black Ops lives or dies on lobby quality. Demolition coming back matters because it is a bomb-plant mode, the closest thing these ports have to a Search warmup outside of Search itself. Forcing PS5 hosts and protecting host migration cut the connection roulette that turns a scrim into a lag reel, and the deadzone retune restores the aim feel that muscle memory was built on with the PS3 originals. Put together, that is the difference between a lobby you can practice in and one you back out of.
What is not confirmed yet
Activision was explicit that the XP exploit is not fully closed and that more fixes are coming, so the problem that could drive your rank negative and lock you out of multiplayer is only partly contained. Reporting also says the patch does nothing for the party-split bug that drops friends onto opposite teams, and that input delay, hit registration, and cheaters are still live complaints. None of that is settled until the next patch lands and players confirm it in real lobbies.
- XP exploit Officially not fully fixed; the studio has promised more mitigations.
- Party split Friends still report landing on opposing teams, with no acknowledged fix.
- Feel and cheaters Input delay, hit registration, and cheaters remain live complaints in reports.
A patch that restores modes and steadies the host is real. Scrim-safe is a claim the next patch still has to earn.